The robbers

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under The Robbers (disambiguation) .

Data
Title:	The robbers
Genus:	play
Original language:	German
Author:	Friedrich Schiller
Publishing year:	1781
Premiere:	January 13, 1782
Place of premiere:	National Theater Mannheim , Mannheim
Place and time of the action:	Germany (Franconia, Saxony and Bohemia), mid-18th century
people
Maximilian , ruling Count von Moor His sons: Karl Franz Amalia from Edelreich Libertines, then bandits Spiegelberg Swiss Grim Razmann Schufterle Scooter Kosinsky black Hermann , bastard of a nobleman Daniel , servant of the Count von Moor Pastor Moser A priest Band of robbers Secondary characters

Die Räuber is the first published drama by Friedrich Schiller . The work, which was initially not intended as a stage play, but as a reading drama , is divided into five acts ; it originated in the era of the Enlightenment and the flow Sturm und Drang attributable in German literature. It was first published anonymously in 1781, then premiered on January 13, 1782 in Mannheim , where it caused a national sensation and suddenly made Schiller famous.

The drama depicts the rivalry between two counts brothers: On the one hand, the intelligent, freedom-loving future robber Karl Moor, who was loved by his father, and on the other, his coldly calculating, deprived of love brother Franz, who is jealous of Karl and his inheritance Father wants to usurp. The central motif is the conflict between understanding and feeling, the central theme is the relationship between law and freedom.

Schiller found inspiration in the story On the History of the Human Heart by Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart . Among other things, Schiller used the fate of the well-known robber chief Nikol List as a template . Up until the first quarter of the 19th century, robber gangs were not uncommon in Germany.

The operas of the same name by Saverio Mercadante ( I briganti , UA Théâtre Italy, Paris 1836) and Giuseppe Verdi ( I masnadieri , London 1847) are based on Schiller's drama.

Language and style

Title page of the first printing in 1781, still without an indication of the author.

Prompt book for the Mannheim premiere in 1782

Schiller (4th from left) recites Die Räuber to his friends in the Bopserwald near Stuttgart, Indian ink drawing by Viktor Heideloff (2nd from left), 1778

Schiller recites The Robbers , an ink drawing by Carl Alexander Heideloff after his father Viktor Heideloff

Franz Moor played by Ludwig Devrient

The dramatic play “The Robbers” is based on Schubart's story “On the History of the Human Heart” and is divided into five acts, each of which is divided into two to five scenes. Emotional language is the means by which Schiller dramatizes the mood of optimism of the Sturm und Drang that is typical of the epoch . His prose, which fluctuates between pathos and vulgarity, with its numerous stylistic figures ( emphasis , anacoluth , rhetorical question , irony , metaphor , climax , parallelism , Hendiadyoin, etc.) creates the passionate intensity of the piece.

content

motto

Quae medicamenta non sanant, ferrum sanat, quae ferrum non sanat, ignis sanat.

“What drugs don't heal, the knife heals; what the knife does not heal, the fire heals; but what does not heal the fire must be regarded as incurable. ”This saying of Hippocrates was published on the back of the cover of the first edition, under the heading" Hippocrates ".

Summary of the plot

Maximilian, ruling Count von Moor, has two unequal sons: Karl and Franz. Franz, ugly by nature, was neglected in his childhood and as a second-born has no right to the inheritance. Karl, on the other hand, was always his father's favorite son, but then led a rather reckless and unbridled student life as a student in Leipzig and got caught up in debts before he vowed to get better and wrote his father a letter expressing his wish for forgiveness.

This is where the action of tragedy begins. The jealous Franz replaces his brother's letter with his own: he reads to his father a text allegedly written by a correspondent from Leipzig, which portrays Karl as a woman molester, murderer and bandit. The father is so appalled by this that he lets Franz persuade him to banish Karl and disinherit him.

Karl, who had hoped for a reconciliation, is so desperate that he lets himself be elected leader of a band of robbers founded by his friends, which he considers honorable from his idealistic point of view, as they stand up for the weaker. Within this gang, however, tensions arise, which originate primarily from Moritz Spiegelberg, who murdered and vilified for sheer pleasure. Karl gets deeper and deeper into a vicious circle of injustice and violence that blocks his way back to civil life, and finally swears eternal loyalty to his robbers. But when innocent people also die because of him and when Karl is reminded of his beloved bride Amalia by a newcomer, Kosinsky, he decides to return to his father's house unrecognized.

In the meantime Franz has managed to break his father's heart with the help of another scheming lie about the "prodigal son" and to make himself the new master of Moor Castle. Obsessed with power and lustful, he repeatedly tries to win Amalia over. However, she resists his brazen advances and continues to brave her fiancé. Disguised, Karl enters the castle, sees through the context of its decline and learns that Amalia - who does not recognize him - still loves him.

When Franz guesses who is under the disguise, Karl flees the castle and by chance meets his father, believed dead, who is vegetating in a hunger tower and does not recognize his favorite son. Outraged, Karl sends his robbers to storm the castle and arrest the hated brother Franz. However, at the last moment he evades the just punishment by suicide . The robbers take Amalia prisoner and bring her to Karl, who now, desperate over the course of events, reveals himself as the robber captain. That gives his father the fatal blow. Amalia is also horrified, but holds on to her love for Karl despite everything. However, due to the unbreakable oath that binds him to his robbers, it is not possible for Karl to return to her. Amalia doesn't want to go on living without him and asks him to kill her. With a heavy heart, Karl does her this last favor and stabs her. He realizes "that two people like me would destroy the whole structure of the moral world" and decides to surrender himself to justice.

1st act

The starting point of the plot is the situation in the noble von Moor family: an old father between his unequal sons Karl and Franz, who become irreconcilable enemies. The younger son, Franz, stays in his father's castle, while the older, Karl, leads a dissolute life as a student in Leipzig.

1st scene:

The old Count Maximilian von Moor finally receives news from his eldest son Karl in a letter from Leipzig. But the letter that his second-born son Franz brought him and that was allegedly written by a friend of Karl's does not contain anything positive: Karl is apparently in dire straits, allegedly owed 40,000 ducats, deflowered the daughter of a wealthy banker, whose fiancé was in Killed duel and evaded prosecution. Not knowing that Franz had intrigued his brother, forged the letter and had the real letter from Karl, in which he asks his father for forgiveness, disappeared, the father is deeply shaken by the misdeeds of his son Karl and allows Franz to persuade him to do so to cast out and disinherit his older son. He hopes to get Karl back on the right track with this educational measure and intends to rekindle contact with him after his purification. Although the father admonished his younger son several times not to plunge Karl into even greater despair with his reply, Franz formulated the letter in a particularly harsh and dismissive manner in order to seal the rift between father and son forever.

2nd scene:

At the same time, Karl and his friend Spiegelberg complained in a pub about the restrictive laws and the sluggish "castrato century". While the rest of the friends arrive, Karl is given the letter that Franz wrote in the father's name. When he learns that his father has rejected him and that no request for forgiveness could change anything, Karl drops the letter wordlessly on the floor and runs out of the room. After the friends have read the letter, Spiegelberg uses Karl's absence to persuade the others to form a band of robbers. At that moment Karl returns and declares that a world has collapsed for him. He takes the father's punishment as a sign that all of humanity has lost its humanity. Excited, he accepts his friends' offer to become their leader, and formulates an oath to bind them to one another until they die. Everyone swears loyalty to one another, only Spiegelberg remains disappointed and resentful aside, because he had hoped that it would not be Karl but him that the role of leader would be offered.

3rd scene:

Franz desires Amalia and tries to win her over by lying about her fiancé: Karl has moved her engagement ring to pay a prostitute. Franz's exaggerations, however, make Amalia suspicious. She sees through his wrong play, realizes his real intentions, and gives him a firm rebuff. Unmasked, Franz drops his hypocritical mask and swears bitter revenge.

2nd act

1st scene:

Franz, who would himself like to be master of the von Moor family, comes up with a devious plan to kill his father in order to have sole power. He puts the bastard Hermann into a rage against Karl and the old Moor with allusions to his illegitimate origin, so that he helps him to get the two out of the way. As a reward, Franz promises him the hand of beautiful Amalia, and Hermann agrees. In return, he had to pretend to be Karl's comrade in front of the old moor and bring him the terrible news that Karl was dead. No sooner has Hermann left the scene than Franz's true face emerges and it becomes clear that he never intended to do without Amalia. More than ever he desires Karl's fiancée for himself.

2nd scene:

When the disguised Hermann told the old Moor that Karl had fallen, the desperate father blamed himself for it. He cannot believe that his firstborn's violation led him to war and thus to his death. Amalia, also deeply shaken by the alleged death of her lover, tries to comfort the old moor. But the latter cannot cope with the severe blow of fate - especially since Franz still sprinkles salt into the wound with his speeches - and collapses as if dead. Then Franz sees himself as an heir. His first remarks as the Count's successor reveal that he will become a true tyrant.

3rd scene:

Meanwhile, Karl lives as captain of his band of robbers in the Bohemian forests. Spiegelberg also returns to them and leads the gang to new followers. Loyalty to their captain is strengthened when the robbers learn that Roller, a valued member of the gang, has been saved from the gallows by Karl. The city that sentenced Roller to death was set on fire and completely destroyed. 83 city residents fell victim to the liberation. When the forest is surrounded by a large number of soldiers, a priest tries to get the robbers to hand over their captain by promising them that they will be forgiven for their atrocities through this betrayal. But although Karl himself asks his men to hand him over, they stand firmly behind him. The fight begins and the second act ends with the cry of “death or freedom”.

3rd act

1st scene:

In the garden Amalia is playing a funeral song for her lover Karl on the lute. Franz joins them and begins to woo them again. He talks about throwing himself at her feet and wanting to become her slave. Amalia refuses to accept him and accuses him of murdering his brother. Then Franz, now master of Moor Castle after the supposed death of his father, changes his tactics and harshly orders her to marry him. When Amalia rejects this request, Franz threatens her to put her in the monastery. But this threat does not work: she would rather go to the monastery than become his wife. Franz, in his anger, wants to drag her forcibly in front of the altar and then climb her "virgin bed". When Amalia answered these words with a slap in the face, Franz simply declared Amalia to be his mistress . Amalia feigns a reconciliation, hugs Franz, snatches his sword and chases him away. Hermann appears and asks her for forgiveness. When he confesses his complicity and reveals that Karl and his father are still alive, she can hardly believe this at first. However, they are only happy to hear about the fate of Charles. She no longer seems to notice the fact that the old count has not died either.

2nd scene:

Tired and desperate after the previous battle, Karl remembers his childhood and begins to question his previous deeds and their consequences. At that moment Kosinsky enters the scene. He intends to join the robbers. Karl teaches him, however, that only a person who is completely hopeless can enter into such a "terrible bond". Kosinsky tells the robbers his life story, and it turns out that it resembles Karl in many ways. When it turns out that Kosinsky also has a lover by the name of Amalia, Karl sees this as a sign of fate and decides to return home to see his Amalia. The robbers follow him unconditionally.

4th act

1st scene:

Karl reaches his homeland and gives Kosinsky the job of riding up to the castle and introducing him there as Count von Brand. Memories of childhood and youth are awakened at the sight of familiar surroundings; his monologue becomes increasingly gloomy. Doubts about the sense of his return arise in him, nevertheless he takes courage and finally enters the castle.

2nd scene:

Amalia accompanies the disguised Karl to the ancestral gallery, but does not recognize him. But Franz suspects who is hiding behind the visitor and asks the old servant Daniel to poison the stranger. But he doesn't want to burden his Christian conscience with murder.

3rd scene:

Daniel recognizes Karl, and he confesses his real identity to him when Daniel notices an old scar on Karl. Karl then learns of his brother's intrigues. He wants to see Amalia one more time before leaving the castle without a thought of revenge.

4th scene:

During a last meeting with Amalia, whom Karl still does not recognize, they both talk about their distant lovers. Karl reports on his atrocities and explains why he cannot return to "his" Amalia. Amalia, meanwhile, is happy that “her” Karl is still alive and that she knows him righteously far away. Karl breaks at the pure image that Amalia has of him and flees back to his robbers who are encamped in front of the castle.

5th scene:

During Karl's absence, Spiegelberg tries to incite the robbers against their captain and suggests that he will become the head of the gang himself and want to murder Karl. But the loyal Swiss stabs him. After Karl has returned to his men, they wait for new orders from their captain. But he orders them to go to sleep, takes his lute and sings a song about an encounter between the dead Caesar and his murderer Brutus. The parricide dealt with in the song (based on the legend that Brutus may have been Caesar's son) reminds Karl of his own guilt. He indulges in suicidal thoughts, which he suppresses again.

That same night, Hermann comes into the forest to secretly provide his father Moor, who is locked in a tower, with food. Karl notices this, frees the prisoner and recognizes him as his father, but remains unrecognized himself. The old Moor tells what happened to him and how he got into the tower. Full of indignation, Karl seeks revenge and orders the attack on the castle. Schweizer is supposed to get Franz alive for him. He swears that he will either return with the living Franz or not at all.

5th act

1st scene:

That same night, Franz had a nightmare about the Last Judgment. As he rushes through the castle excited and scared, he meets the fleeing Daniel, describes his dream to him and lets him call a pastor. A lengthy dispute about faith and guilt ensues between Franz and Pastor Moser, in which Franz mocks Moser's views. When asked what the worst sins are, Moser explains to him that the greatest crimes are parricide and fratricide, but that Franz can no longer be guilty of them, since his father and brother are already dead. Franz Moser, feeling guilty, sends him away and remains distraught. He hears the robbers approach the castle and set it on fire. When he hears Schweizer's voice and realizes that the robbers have come because of him, he tries to pray. But he cannot and demands that Daniel kill him. But the latter refuses to provide assistance. Then Franz strangled himself with his hat string for fear of the robbers. Schweizer, who can no longer fulfill his promise to catch Karl's brother alive, shoots himself.

2nd scene:

The old moor laments the fate of his sons. Karl, still unrecognized, asks for his father's blessing. The robbers return to Karl with Amalia, who they picked up near the camp. When the latter reveals his identity and reveals that he is the robber chief, his father dies of horror. Amalia forgives Karl and wants to live with him again, but due to the oath of loyalty that Karl made to the robbers, this is not possible. However, Amalia no longer wants to live without him and asks Karl to kill her. At first, Karl cannot bring this with the heart. Only after one of the robbers wants to do this for him does Karl do it after all, but now finally realizes that his life has been forfeited. He decides to do one last good deed and to pay off his debt by handing himself over to a poor day laborer who is supposed to feed his eleven children with the bounty that is exposed on Karl.

characters

Karl Moor from the Schiller Gallery ;
Steel engraving by Sichling after Pecht , around 1859

Karl Moor

Karl Moor is an idealistic rebel of attractive and charismatic appearance. His radical thoughts and passionate feelings reflect typical traits of Sturm und Drang . Basically he is honest and only then becomes a disgraceful criminal and murder burner when he believes that his father has unjustly rejected him. He developed a close bond with his men, especially with Roller, Schweizer and Kosinsky, but also recognized the unscrupulousness of his friend Spiegelberg and other journeymen, who forced him to accept increasingly brutal atrocities. In solidarity with his accomplices and to save Roller from execution, he finally has an entire city burned down. When he learns that Amalia is ready to forgive a murder boy like him, he gets into an inner conflict because he has sworn his robbers (some of whom, like Swiss and Roller, have sacrificed their lives for him) never to meet again to separate from them.

Desperate, he pays a double blood toll: he kills his beloved at her pleading after the gang reminds him of his oath of allegiance. And he decides to face justice by handing himself over to a poor day laborer so that he can collect his bounty. Although Karl is completely the opposite of Franz in character, the brothers nonetheless show certain similarities: In both cases, it is the rejection by their father that seduces them into overly impulsive actions and on the basis of which they presume to grant themselves absolution for their future offenses .

Franz Moor

Franz Moor from the Schiller Gallery
Engraving by Johann Leonhard Raab after Pecht

Franz Moor is the younger son of Count von Moor, whose whole love was always for Karl. As the second-born, Franz has no claims to a share of the inheritance and is not only legally competent as an adult , but is subordinate to the father. On top of that, in contrast to his brother Karl, he is misshapen and unpopular, with a sharp intelligence and insidious character. However, Franz, who is so disadvantaged, does not want to submit to the natural (legal) order, but rather to take revenge for the perceived injustice. He goes so far that he wants to eradicate everything “that restricts me from being master”. Since Karl was always the favorite, a love deficit arose for Franz, which made the "sensual world" of passion unbearable for him. So he fixed himself on a rationalistic way of thinking and became a cold, amoral , egoistic materialist and nihilist .

Envy and jealousy towards his brother have turned into blind hatred over the years. That is why Franz intrigues against Karl so that he experiences the same emotional rejection from his father as Franz himself. But the father should also atone for his behavior. So Franz acts without scruples, achieves Karl's fatherly offense and almost kills his father himself through the desperation into which he then plunges him. With this figure, Schiller demonstrates what could happen if the behavior of a person who grew up without love were no longer determined by morality, but solely by cold rationality. Franz's boundless pursuit of power ultimately ends in the catastrophe of suicide.

Amalia from Edelreich

Amalia from the Schiller Gallery ;
Original steel engraving after Pecht , around 1859

Amalia is Karl's fiancée and a daughter of his own for old Moor. She is a loyal, honest, nice, reliable and calm person. But first she too, like old Moor, is deceived by the younger son's intrigue. Since she believes that she will meet her beloved, who was believed to be dead, in heaven, she puts all her longings on the life after death. She only appears militant at one point in the work: namely, in her refusal to face the courtly glamor in the dispute with Franz, who desires her and woos her. The later unmasking of Franz's intrigue as well as the unmasking of Karl speak for the strength of her person, but this is less due to logical conclusions than to the deep, loyal love she still feels for him.

Amalia represents the ideal of absolute devotional, pure love. This is also evident in its tragic end. Although her lover has become a murderer, she can not leave the angel. (V, 2). But since Karl is bound to the robbers by his oath, a future together is impossible for the two of them. Amalia expects her only salvation and hope in death, because even a return to the old Moor's house would not be a solution for her, but rather resignation and would have called her love for Karl into question. When she is finally murdered by Karl at her plea, it is less out of mercy than out of desperation over the hopelessness of her situation.

Maximilian von Moor

The Graf Maximilian von Moor (also called "the old Moor" called) is the father of Karl and Franz. He is gracious ruler of his subjects can, however, be too easily influenced in his good faith. He has become weak over time and can no longer assert himself against his headstrong sons. Due to the early death of his wife, forced to raise his children alone, he was unable to do justice to both sons and to help them achieve moral stability.

Moritz Spiegelberg

Spiegelberg acts as an unscrupulous and scheming opponent of Karl Moors, whom he envies for his status as a robber captain. He gets intoxicated with killing, pillaging and looting and brags about having raped all the nuns in a monastery with his cronies. He sees himself restricted in his arbitrariness and thirst for robbery by Karl. Therefore he tries to make Karl bad with the robbers and to take his position, but is stabbed by the Swiss. Like Franz, he puts his intellectual originality at the service of selfish goals, like Karl, he shows himself dissatisfied with the bourgeois order. An explanation for his resentment could result from the awareness of being on the fringes of society as a Jew, although it cannot be unequivocally clarified whether Spiegelberg is actually a Jew. Because he is denied social recognition, the only possible way out is the fragile existence of the criminal.

Servant Daniel

He is the servant of the Count von Moor. He is a good-hearted person, patient and devout. Nevertheless, loyalty to Franz seems temporarily more important to him than that to God. But his favorite is Karl, and so he is also the second person (after Franz) to recognize the robber captain despite his disguise.

interpretation

Theater ticket for the first performance on the Würzburg stage on November 28, 1804.

Two brothers fight against Maximilian's injustice in different ways. One was (mistakenly) rejected by the father, the other, as an ugly second-born, has always been denied love. The rebellious, boundaries breaking Karl takes his fate in open combat, Franz does it in an insidious way. Ultimately, however, both fail: Franz, who is aware of the reprehensibility of his deeds, kills himself for fear of the vengeance of the approaching robbers; Karl realizes that he, too, has done wrong and sacrifices himself in one last good deed so that in the end the prevailing order is not overturned.

In an up-to-date interpretation of the challenge of terrorism , Arata Takeda points out that the parallel acts of brothers, under the sign of a “misdevelopment of enlightened thinking”, reflect the conditions for violence against a political order to develop and develop. In a sense, the piece thus points to the French Revolution and its later course.

The Krummfinger-Balthasar gang, which had up to 1500 members in the middle of the 18th century, served as the template for the robber gang. After Jakob Friedrich von Abel , the sun host Friedrich Schwan, who also appeared in Schiller's "The Criminal From Lost Honor (1792)", served as a (further) source for the robber captain.

Stylistic and content peculiarities

One of the main features of the flow of the storm and urge the German Literature in the Age of Enlightenment , which the robbers come, is the protest against standards and laws of literature, like that of Aristotle established rules of tragedy . It was not directly about Aristotle, but about his interpretation by the French classics , such as Nicolas Boileau , which had become obsolete before the French Revolution . In Paris , similar efforts led to the theatrical melodrama genre , which is in many ways similar to Schiller's robbers . If one examines the drama in terms of compliance with the rules of tragedy, the following becomes apparent:

The drama takes place in the middle of the 18th century. The time that elapses during the plot is approximately two years. This contradicts the rules established by Aristotle for a classical tragedy. In addition, the action takes place in different locations that are far from each other: partly in the Count's castle, partly in the tavern on the Saxon border and partly in the Bohemian forests on the Danube .

At first glance, Schiller adhered to the class clause observed by Aristotle , because the protagonist Karl and his brother Franz are sons of Count Maximilian Moor and thus noble class. The fiancé of the protagonist Karl also bears a title of nobility, so that one cannot, as in the case of Schiller's Kabale und Liebe , speak of cross-class love. However, with the decision to join a band of robbers, Karl Moor turned away from his scheming brother and his father and thus left his original social position, which ultimately makes the plot of the drama cross-class.

The diction of the characters is not, as was seen as the rule in 17th century France, in high-level promises, but in prose, and their syntax is often emphasized colloquial: “Hm! Hm! That's the way it is. But I fear - I do not know - whether I - your health? - Are you really well, my father? ”Among other things, this expresses the inner turmoil of the characters.

premiere

Theater ticket for the premiere on January 13, 1782

On January 13, 1782, the play was premiered at the Nationaltheater Mannheim . There was great public interest, as the print edition published a year earlier had already caused a sensation because of its open criticism of the feudal system. Theater director and director Wolfgang Heribert von Dalberg wanted to defuse the plot by moving it 300 years into the past. August Wilhelm Iffland appeared in the role of Franz Moor in contemporary clothing.

The performance caused a scandal. A contemporary witness reported: The theater was like a madhouse, rolling eyes, clenched fists, hoarse cries in the auditorium. Strangers fell sobbing into each other's arms, women staggered towards the door, on the verge of fainting. It was a general dissolution, like chaos, from whose mist a new creation is breaking out. Schiller, who himself attended the premiere with his friend Andreas Streicher, although he was forbidden, gave the performance an anonymous criticism in which he accused the author, i.e. himself, of weaknesses.

reception

Adaptations and parodies

• ETA Hoffmann reinterpreted the plot in his posthumous novella Die Räuber , in which Karl became the villain and Franz became a noble person.
• Saverio Mercadante composed an opera I Briganti , based on Schiller's play, which premiered in Paris in 1836.
• Giuseppe Verdi's opera I masnadieri , premiered in 1847, took up the theme again.
• Giselher Klebe 's first opera Die Räuber , which premiered in 1957 and for which he also wrote the libretto , is based on Schiller's drama and is dedicated to the memory of Giuseppe Verdi.
• Bonfire released an album in 2008 called The Robbers , which paraphrases German and English-language songs with scenes from the robbers . Bonfire also worked with the Ingolstadt Theater on a rock opera of the piece with live performances by the band.

Film adaptations

• D 1913: The Robbers (Director: Friedrich Fehér )
• GDR 1967: The Robbers (TV), directed by Gerd Keil, Jens-Peter Proll
• D 1977: Death or Freedom (Director: Wolf Gremm ; very free adaptation)
• D / B / L 2014: Die Räuber (Director: Pol Cruchten ; opening film of the Max Ophüls Prize 2015 film festival )
• D 2016: The Robbers (Director: Cornelia Köhler , school film, DVD)

Some filmographies incorrectly state a German film adaptation from 1940. What is meant by this is the film Friedrich Schiller - Triumph of a Genius , in which the creation of the piece and its premiere play an essential role.

Radio play adaptations

• Die Räuber , director: Karl Kayser, production: VEB Deutsche Schallplatten, Litera 8 60 051-052, 1963
• The robbers , directed by Leonhard Koppelmann . Production: SWR , 2006

additional

see: " Schiller-Robber Problem "

Trivia

The fictional character Johannes Scheffler , who tries to get into German drama schools in Sönke Wortmann's film comedy Kleine Haie , makes use of Karl's monologue “Do you hear it?” (Act II, Scene 3).

expenditure

• Friedrich Schiller: The robbers . Edited by Joseph Kiermeier-Debre. Original text with appendix on author, work and text form, incl. Timetable and glossary, published in the library of first editions, 5th edition. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-423-02601-4 .
• Friedrich Schiller: The robbers. In: Friedrich Schiller: Complete Works . Based on the original prints, ed. by Gerhard Fricke and Herbert G. Göpfert in connection with Herbert Stubenrauch . Volume 1: Poems. Dramas I. 4th edition. Carl Hanser, Munich 1965.
• Friedrich Schiller: The robbers. Text and materials. (= "Classical School Reading" series). Edited by Ekkehart Mittelberg and Dieter Seiffert. Cornelsen, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-464-12138-0 .
• Simply classic: Friedrichschiller: The robbers . Edited for the school by Diethard Lübke. Cornelsen, ISBN 978-3464609545 .

literature

• Brittnacher, Hans Richard: The robbers. In: Schiller manual. Ed. V. Helmut Koopmann. Stuttgart ² 2011, pp. 344-372.
• Chouk, Idris: Greatness and Moral Responsibility in Friedrich Schiller's Dramas. Munich 2007 (series of publications by the Institute for German as a Foreign Language Philology, Vol. 4).
• Darras, Gilles: With body and soul. Body language, psychology and philosophy in Schiller's early dramas. In: Euphorion 99 (2005), pp. 69-101.
• Grawe, Christian: Friedrich Schiller: ' The robbers '. In: Explanations and documents. Ed. V. That. Stuttgart 2006.
• Grzesiuk, Ewa: Cabal with the Bible. Biblical references and biblical abuse in Franz von Moors' intrigue. Some thoughts on Schiller's robbers . In: On the trail of the Holy Scriptures. Contributions to biblical intertextuality in literature. Ed. V. Maria Kłańska u. a. Dresden 2009, pp. 170-184.
• Hauenherm, Eckhard: Pragmalinguistic aspects of the dramatic dialogue. Dialogue analytical studies on Gottsched's' Dying Cato ', Lessing's, Emilia Galotti' and Schiller's' Die Räuber '. Frankfurt am Main 2002 (European University Papers. Series 1, Bd. 1828).
• Hinderer, Walter: The robbers . In: interpretations. Schiller's dramas. Ed. V. That. Stuttgart 2005, pp. 11-67.
• Jahn, Bernhard: The imaginator and his victims - Schiller's robbers as a theater of the imagination. In: Euphorion 99 (2005), pp. 51-67.
• Kaiser, Gerhard: Sympathy for the evil? Villain in Schiller's "Robbers". In: Role Subject and Drama. European theater conventions in the text. Ed. V. Anke Detken u. Anja Schonlau. Tübingen 2014, pp. 107–122.
• Koc, Richard: Fathers and Sons. Ambivalence Doubled in Schiller's Robber. In: The Germanic Review 61, 3 (1986), pp. 91-104.
• Mine, Iris: The Suicide Motive in 18th Century Drama. Wuerzburg 2015.
• Müller-Seidel, Walter: Conspiracies and rebellions in Schiller's dramas. In: Schiller and the courtly world. Ed. V. Achim Aurnhammer, Klaus Manger, Friedrich Strack. Tübingen 1990, pp. 422-446.
• Oberlin, Gerhard: "When culture degenerates". The mechanics of evil in Schiller's robbers . In: Yearbook of the German Schiller Society 50 (2006), pp. 107-133.
• Riedler, Wolfgang: The Enlightenment and the Unconscious: The Inversion of Franz Moor, in: Yearbook of the German Schiller Society 37 (1993), pp. 198-220.
• Sautermeister, Gert: The robbers. A play (1781). In: Schiller Handbook. Life - work - effect. Ed. V. Matthias Luserke-Jaqui. Stuttgart, Weimar 2005, pp. 1-45.
• Schings, Hans-Jürgen: Philosophy of love and tragedy of universal hatred. “Die Räuber” in the context of Schiller's youth philosophy, in: Yearbook of the Vienna Goethe-Verein 84/85 (1980/1981), pp. 71–95.
• Schings, Hans-Jürgen: Schiller's "robbers". An experiment of universal hatred. In: Friedrich Schiller. Art, Humanity and Politics in the Late Enlightenment. A symposium. Ed. V. Wolfgang Wittkowski. Tübingen 1982, pp. 1-25.
• Seidlin, Oskar: Schiller's “deceptive signs”. The function of the letters in his early dramas. In: Yearbook of the German Schiller Society 4 (1960), pp. 247–169.
• Sternberger, Dolf: Schiller's political heroes. In: Schiller and the courtly world. Ed. V. Achim Aurnhammer, Klaus Manger, Friedrich Strack. Tübingen 1990, pp. 307-317.
• Stransky-Stranka-Greifenfels, Werner von: "... that's how it was symmetry and beauty". On the templates and structure of Friedrich Schiller's play 'Die Räuber'. Stockholm 1998.
• Wenzel, Stefanie: The motive of the hostile brothers in the drama of the storm and stress. Frankfurt am Main 1993 (Marburg German Studies, Vol. 14).
• Wohlgemuth, Ralf: The strange brother. On the construction of strangeness in the figure of Franz Moor. In: Moments of Being Alien. Cultural studies contributions on alienation, loss of identity and disintegration in literature, film and society. Ed. V. Corinna Schlicht. Oberhausen 2006, pp. 169-180.

Web links

Commons : Die Räuber (Friedrich Schiller)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: The Robbers  - Sources and full texts

Wikiquote: The Robbers  - Quotes

Wikiversity: The Robbers. Title page of the first printing (1781)  - course materials

• Friedrich Schiller Archive: full text, background material and images
• Illustrated summary
• The robbers as part of the Gutenberg project
• The robbers as a free and public domain audio book at LibriVox
• Interpretation of The Robbers

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. Christian Friedrich Schubart: On the history of the human heart, 1775
2. ↑ The name Spiegelberg could be an indication that he is Jewish. However, in his work Imago judaica , Gunnar Och, for example, discusses arguments for Spiegelberg's membership of Judaism and comes to the conclusion that these are not valid enough to be able to assume a Jewish identity of the figure. Werner von Stransky-Stranka-Greifenfels also takes up the discourse in his work “... that's how it was symmetry and beauty”. On the templates and structure of Friedrich Schiller's play 'Die Räuber ' on (p. 236f.).
3. ↑ Walter Hinderer: The robbers. In: Walter Hinderer (Ed.): Interpretations. Schiller's dramas . Stuttgart 2005, p. 34.
4. ↑ Cf. Arata Takeda: Aesthetics of Self-Destruction. Suicide bombers in Western literature . Munich 2010, pp. 228-229.
5. ↑ Herforth, Maria-Felicitas: King's Explanations Friedrich Schiller Die Räuber, Bange Verlag, Hollfeld, 2010, pp. 24–26
6. ↑ Quoted from Bernhard Zeller, Schiller. A picture biography , Munich 1958, p. 28 f.
7. ↑ Friedrich Schiller: Self-review in the Wirtemberg Repertory, 1782
8. ↑ Cornelia Köhler: Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) . Anne Roerkohl Documentary, Münster 2016, ISBN 978-3-942618-20-5 .