Augustenburg letters

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Beginning on July 13, 1793 , Friedrich Schiller wrote down his thoughts on aesthetics in the Augustenburg Letters to thank Friedrich Christian von Augustenburg for his support. The letters later form the basis for the letters on the aesthetic education of man .

Emergence

As a result of years of grueling, but not particularly lucrative work as a poet , historian and history lecturer in Jena, Schiller suffered a collapse in January 1791 . It was the first episode of his serious illness, from which he would never fully recover. When Schiller had a serious relapse in May after a temporary improvement, the rumor of his death spread. A little later in Europe they were relieved to learn that it had been a false report, but it had been alarming. In honest concern for the well-being of the famous man, the Danish writer Jens Immanuel Baggesen successfully sought a pension for Schiller from the Hereditary Prince Friedrich Christian von Augustenburg . Granted for three years, it alleviated Schiller's financial worries and unexpectedly gave him time to study the works of Immanuel Kant , which he had already started reading in February. In dealing with Kant's principles on aesthetics, which are discussed in the " Critique of Judgment ", and in view of the course of the French Revolution , Schiller developed his own theory on aesthetics. As thanks for the scholarship that the Duke of Augustenburg had granted him, he wrote down his thoughts in the Augustenburg letters, which he sent to him until 1793. When these letters were destroyed a little later in a castle fire in February 1794, Schiller decided to publish them in a heavily revised form as the Letters On Aesthetic Education of Man in his Hours .

content

Although Schiller addresses the concrete possibility of aesthetic independence of the artist through princely patronage in his writing , he also asks the question of why one should concern oneself with the creation of an aesthetic ideal in art at a time when people are directly involved in construction of the great work of art, who realized perfect freedom (year IV of the French Revolution).

By contrasting art and utility, he comes to the conclusion that art has practically no utility. It carries its meaning only in itself. This is what makes its real use: it comes to perfect freedom through beauty, not violence. Because the question must be what kind of freedom the revolution creates through political action. Immediately after the execution of Louis XVI. In January 1793, which Schiller received with deep dismay, he was certain that it could only be a freedom of barbarism. If the wilderness of the people brings the end of the Enlightenment with it, the historical pessimism and the cultural criticism are not far away.

The concept of totality

Schiller sets his standards very high in his writing. He demands totality of character in order to move from a natural state (state of need) to a rational state (state of freedom). In such a case, the individual whole person would no longer be asked (the anthropologist Schiller was always looking for the whole person), but the people as a whole human race.

For the classic Schiller, the normative measure of the totality of character lies in ancient Greece . There already art shows the harmonious wholeness of human powers. In every single Greek, according to Schiller, a wonderful simplicity can be observed , a “unity in diversity” , which combines form and fullness, tenderness and energy, youth of the imagination and masculinity of reason, philosophy and education in a wonderful humanity.

Such a totality of character must of course be an impossibility in modern times. A circumstance that will apply to all peoples and for all eternity, because a world of particularism has arisen with modern society , full of crippled plants, of fragmentary people. Schiller affirms the process of civilization; not for the individual human being, but for humanity. If he threw individuals into error, he still brought the species to the truth. The process of culture is irreversible. Alienation, the mechanization of people is the price of progress that turns society into clockwork: extremely artistic, but composed of an infinite number of lifeless parts. "Man remains forever just a single fragment of a captivating universal structure."

But how can totality be thought at all and how particularism can be overcome? Schiller is clear that the way out of the clockwork can never be a return to the Greeks or to a completely natural state , as with Jean-Jacques Rousseau . - Unless in the medium of art, in the representation of the idyll (Schiller describes this in detail in “ On naive and sentimental poetry ”). Because history is always progress, never regression. Devolution is ruled out in the historical process, because nobody can and wants to reverse the innovations of the present, which were paid for with fragmentation. The way out cannot be to imitate the past.

At this point Schiller concludes that the current state of affairs can only be overcome through culture itself. The law of nature must submit to leading back to totality through higher culture. Thus, in his statements, extreme affirmation and denial of modernity can be found together.

About the work of art and the artist

A work of art, writes Schiller, is independent of reality, of the purposes of the state. With this pure, fair tool, the barbaric state constitution could change for the better. He regards fine art as an independent medium for refining one's character. Therefore, like science, it must be absolutely immune. The most powerful legislator can block their territory, but he cannot rule in it alone. The artist, for his part, according to Schiller, is on the one hand a son of his time, from which he cannot escape and to which he therefore reacts and has to reflect. On the other hand, he is also a stranger in his time, because he does not allow the content of his works to be imposed on him. Thus, in art and for the artist, there is a contrast between form (stranger) and matter (son). The artist is the representative of the immortal unity. The form of the work of art is beyond time. She has to eat the matter.

It is a misery, according to Schiller, when the artist is forced to become a pupil or favorite of his presence. In this case he has to return to his time as an alien figure after he was raised outside of her. But this is also where the high demands on the artist lie, who should bring their standards with them from a utopian past in order to become judges and avengers in the present (of course with their pen). As the bearer of the timeless ideal, the artist steps out of time ( Orestes as a symbol) and becomes its highest critic. For the sentimental character of Schiller, the naive Goethe represents such an ideal of an artist (in detail in “On naive and sentimental poetry”). He lives with his century, but is not his creation. For this reason he could become a protagonist of higher truth.

The dual nature of man

In the individual human being as a double nature, according to Schiller, two drives are united with each other:

  • on the one hand the material drive , d. H. his physical, sensual existence;
  • on the other hand the form drive . Guided by rational nature, he is able to set people free.

In the work of art, these two antipodes come together again in a harmonious balance between sensuality and reason. The work of art is the symbol of the fulfilled destiny of man. From this union of material and form instincts arise an instinct to play in which the human being finds his highest destiny. He is the heart of perfect humanity. "Man is only complete where he plays."

Conclusion

With his letters to the Duke of Augustenburg , Schiller proves that art is a necessary condition of humanity, although it finds its use in itself. However, only if it can develop independently of princely violence and material needs. Because only from freedom can one draw freedom. Princely patronage is therefore a necessary milestone on the way to totality, in which appearance overcomes reality and art ultimately overcomes nature. The art of antiquity is only a tired afterglow of this totality, the modern for its part a dull but hopeful appearance. (Schiller describes this teleology in his elegy “The Walk”. Later he pessimistically picks up on it in his poem “The Pilgrim”.) According to Schiller, the peaks are already illuminated, although it is still a damp night in the valleys. The realm of freedom must - this is a tenor of the Weimar Classic - change from a political to an aesthetic long-term goal.

Reality

Schiller himself was skeptical of his utopia of an aesthetic state. Such a wish would be everyone's wish, but it could only become a reality in exclusive circles. With his exaggerated standards, Schiller increasingly distanced himself from his audience, and expressed criticism of the writers and no less of their time. The readers of his Horen soon turned away from the magazine and the authors because of the exaggerated demands that grew out of Schiller's imitation of Kant. And even Schiller himself came to the conclusion: "I'm closing my philosophical booth again."

The Augustenburg letters were an intellectual preparatory work for the 27 letters on the aesthetic education of man , which Schiller developed in exchange with his friend Christian Gottfried Körner .

Texts

  • Friedrich Schiller to Duke Christian Friedrich von Augustenburg, February 9, 1793 .
  • Friedrich Schiller to Duke Christian Friedrich von Augustenburg, July 13, 1793 .
  • Friedrich Schiller to Duke Christian Friedrich von Augustenburg, November 11, 1793 .
  • Friedrich Schiller to Duke Christian Friedrich von Augustenburg, November 21, 1793 .
  • Friedrich Schiller to Duke Christian Friedrich von Augustenburg, December 3, 1793 .
  • Friedrich Schiller to Duke Christian Friedrich von Augustenburg, December 1793 .
  • Friedrich Schiller: Letters to Duke Friedrich Christian von Augustenburg, in: Friedrich Schiller: Works and letters in twelve volumes, ed. v. Otto Dann et al. (Frankfurt edition), Vol. 8: Theoretical writings, ed. v. Rolf-Peter Janz, with the assistance of v. Hans Richard Brittnacher a. a., Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1992 (Library of German Classics, Vol. 78), pp. 491–555.

literature

Further philosophical writings by Schiller

Web links