Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759 – 1805) entered world literature as a participant in the Sturm and Drang movement. It was a protest of progressive burgher youth against the canons of classicism, a call for a vivid depiction of reality, a manifestation of passions.

Schiller is rightfully considered one of the most consistent supporters of lofty ideals: spiritual, moral, political and aesthetic. His tragedies, ballads, poems, and philosophical treatises are very diverse, and therefore always relevant. To this day, Schiller's plays have not left the stage of theaters all over the world.

This play became the culmination of Schiller's early work and the quintessence of the humanistic ideas of the Enlightenment. Many critics consider it a literary revolutionary manifesto for future generations, Schiller's artistic rebellion against the order of Germany in the second half of the 18th century.

Bourgeois drama is also called “bourgeois”

A tragedy" or a "sentimental play". The birth of this genre is associated with social changes, the pressure of capital on social foundations, and in literature with an increased interest in the nature of human feelings. As a rule, at the center of the work are social and sentimental conflicts.

In the foreground are virtue and the triumph of reason.

The plot of the play “Cunning and Love” turned out to be typical and simple-minded, although somewhat confusing. But it concentrates the main everyday problems of that era, which Schiller outlined in an extremely emotional and tragic way. The humanist writer exposed and exposed the vices of German society with his characteristic openness and sharpness.

He already touched on these problems in “The Robbers,” but now he correlated the characters and action sequences with real facts and prototypes.

Provincial life, treacherous intrigues and terrible crimes, luxury and debauchery of the ducal environment, as well as the hopeless poverty of the commoner - this is the setting in which the love story of two young people unfolds. The nobleman Ferdinand von Walter and the daughter of a simple musician, Louise Miller, represent different classes. The theme is as old as time, but is presented in a new way, with Schiller’s inherent ability to combine the comic and tragic, although the playwright himself treated this technique with a degree of irony.

It’s just that the artistic methods of classicism were still popular at that time.

The ardent feelings of the son of President Ferdinand for the bourgeois Louise, unfortunately, cannot be developed. They threaten to destroy all the plans of the eminent father, who intends to marry Ferdinand to the Duke's favorite Lady Milford. Therefore, the most sophisticated intrigues are used. Louise has been slandered for treason, and she must confess this to her lover.

The President's plan was that Ferdinand would reject the dishonest bride. But the young man chose a different path; he could not survive the collapse of his faith in Louise’s purity and chose death for both.

Complexity of character is inherent in almost all the characters in the drama. In those years, Schiller already clearly understood that people’s actions are determined not only by their personal characteristics, but also by their place in society. Hence the noticeable inconsistency of the characters: the immoral behavior and generosity of Lady Milford, the love of power and glory of President von Walter does not prevent him from showing nobility in a moment of grief, the cowardly and humiliated old man Muller finds the strength to resist the insult of his daughter.

Before Schiller, no one had demonstrated with such piercing power the trials that the human heart goes through.

The situation is further complicated by the conflict of classes. Ferdinand's father not only creates obstacles for his son in love, he also wants to assert himself at the expense of Louise's poor family, humiliating the girl and the old musician in every possible way. The behavior of the nobleman clearly proves the fact of the disdainful attitude of the upper class towards commoners.

Critics call “Cunning and Love” the pinnacle of Schiller’s Stürmer drama. In this play, the lover Ferdinand rebels against his fate and insurmountable circumstances. He suffers defeat, but only physically, not morally.

The young man triumphs over his opponent, demonstrating fortitude. This image and the struggle for human rights are very characteristic of Germany in the 18th century. The situation of the burghers, class relations, family and everyday troubles were socially and politically interesting, so the play immediately grew from an everyday play into a bourgeois tragedy.

In the drama “Cunning and Love,” Schiller managed to quite deeply reveal the psychology of the characters, their complex relationships with each other and their place in society. But the main thing here is not the little details of real life using the example of specific characters, but a realistic depiction of “typical” circumstances: the treachery of the strong and the lack of rights of the weak. But the strong and the weak are not in spirit, but because of the social structure of Germany at that time.

It is very important for the author to find out the rights of the people and their ability to resist the powers that be. The action of the play develops intensely; in this work the maturity of Schiller's artistic skill is already noticeable. The characters are described quite vividly and succinctly, in them you can easily read the author’s attitude towards his characters. In moments of special spiritual struggle and moral tension, Schiller chooses the most complex speech patterns.

The characters in the play are often expressed in the language of the most sublime and inspired treatises.

The tragedy “Cunning and Love” was written according to all the canons of theatrical art of that time, therefore it firmly and permanently entered the dramatic repertoire of many famous groups. It was this play that brought Schiller the fame of an ardent champion of freedom. The author has overcome the dry Gelerter style and the tendency to exalt small details.

He turned his face to the everyday problems of ordinary people. Schiller came close to the ideas of heroic art with civic pathos. Thus, the play “Cunning and Love” became a worthy masterpiece of literature during the era of the European Enlightenment.

"Cunning and Love"

The idea of ​​creating a play about modern German reality first arose from Schiller in the guardhouse, where he was imprisoned by the Duke of Württemberg for his unauthorized absence in Mannheim for the performance of The Robbers. After escaping from Stuttgart, Schiller, wandering around Germany, worked on a play. The poet called it “a bold satire and mockery of the breed of jesters and scoundrels from the nobility” (letter to Dahlberg dated April 3, 1783). The little Duchy of Württemberg, the despotic, depraved Karl Eugene, his favorite Countess von Hohenheim, the minister Montmartin, depicted in the play under other names, retaining all their portrait resemblance, turned into grandiose generalized images, types of feudal Germany. The musty little world of a remote province, intrigue and crime, the luxury and debauchery of the ducal court and the appalling poverty of the people - this is the setting in which the tragic story of the sublime love of two noble creatures unfolds - Ferdinand and Louise.

Two social groups are contrasted in the play: on the one hand, the Duke (invisible to the viewer, but constantly invisibly present on the stage, connecting the tragic chain of events with his name); his minister von Walter, a cold, calculating careerist who killed his predecessor, capable of any crime in the name of his career; the Duke's mistress Lady Milford, a proud social beauty; the sneaky and sneaky Wurm, the president's secretary; the pompous dandy, stupid and cowardly Marshal von Kalb. On the other hand, the honest family of the musician Miller, his simple-minded wife, his sweet, intelligent, sensitive daughter Louise. To this group belongs Lady Milford's old valet, who contemptuously rejects the purse of money offered to him by his mistress.

Before us are two worlds, separated by a deep chasm. Some live in luxury, oppress others, are vicious, greedy, selfish; others are poor, persecuted, oppressed, but honest and noble. To them, to these destitute people, came Ferdinand, the son of the ducal minister, a major at twenty years old, a nobleman with a five-hundred-year-old pedigree.

He came to them not only because he was captivated by the beauty of Louise; he understood the depravity of the moral principles of his class. The university, with its new educational ideas, inspired in him faith in the strength of the people, communication with which enlightens and, as it were, elevates a person (Schiller strongly emphasizes this). Ferdinand in the Miller family found that moral harmony, that spiritual clarity that he could not find in his own environment. There are two women in front of Ferdinand. They both love him. One is a brilliant secular beauty, the second is an unassuming city dweller, beautiful in her simplicity and spontaneity. And Ferdinand can only love this girl from the people, only with her is he able to find moral satisfaction and peace of mind.

Schiller's play was staged for the first time on May 9, 1784 at the Mannheim Theater. Her success was extraordinary. The audience saw modern Germany in front of them. Those glaring injustices that were happening before everyone's eyes, but which they were afraid to talk about, now appeared in living and convincing stage images. The revolutionary, rebellious thought of the poet sounded from the stage of the theater in the exciting speeches of his heroes. “My ideas about greatness and happiness are markedly different from yours,” Ferdinand says to his father in the play. The actor’s speech was addressed to the chairs where representatives of the nobility of the then Germany sat: “You achieve prosperity almost always at the cost of the death of another. Envy, fear, hatred - these are the dark mirrors in which the greatness of the ruler is put to shame... Tears, curses, despair - this is the monstrous meal with which these illustrious lucky ones delight themselves.”

Engels called Schiller's play "...the first German politically tendentious drama."

Music teacher Miller is very upset that love has broken out between his daughter Louise and Major Ferdinand: “The girl will never get rid of her shame!”

Soon gossip spreads throughout the city - and the musician's house is threatened with dishonor. After all, according to Muller, the son of President Walter cannot possibly marry the daughter of a modest teacher.

The President's personal secretary, the treacherous and low Wurm, is vying for Louise's hand in marriage. He comes to her father to advise his daughter who she should pay attention to. But the musician drives away Wurm, whose meanness is known to everyone.

On a date, Ferdinand convinces Louise that love is higher than all barriers.

Wurm hurries to inform the president about his son’s feelings for a simple bourgeois woman. The President laughs: he is ready to pay a fine for seducing a girl, but his son must marry Lady Milford, the Duke’s dissolute favorite. With this, von Walter will strengthen his influence on the Duke himself. And the moral qualities of his future daughter-in-law and the feelings of his own son do not bother him at all.

The Duke reports his son's wedding (to the Duke, the city, the court) as if the matter has been decided. But Ferdinand rejects the “high-ranking libertine.”

The son condemns his father for “crawling around the throne” and robbing the people, because for him his own benefit is more valuable than high ideals.

From Lady Milford's conversation with the chambermaid, it turns out that the woman is madly in love with Ferdinand. She is ready to sacrifice everything! him. And she donates: the magnificent diamonds given to her by the Duke are sent to be sold, and the money is donated to help the poor people affected by the fire. She wants to equal the nobility of her loved one

On a date between Ferdinand and Lady Milford, the major accuses the woman in love with him of being corrupt; the same one tells him about her sad fate - a fourteen-year-old Englishwoman, in whose veins royal blood flowed, was forced after the execution of her high-ranking English father (he was accused of conspiracy ) flee to Germany. However, the teenage girl still grabbed the box with family jewelry, and so she lived from the sale of “diamond pins.” She was not accustomed to work and humility, so at the age of twenty, my lady became the Duke’s beloved. The favorite takes credit for the fact that she distracted the Duke from many girls and women who, before his relationship with her, were victims of his claims.

Ferdinand believes the sincerity of this woman and confesses to her that he loves another, wants to connect his destiny with her.

Milady declares that their marriage is a done deal. The whole duchy is talking about it, and Milford cannot and does not want to allow it to be cancelled.

Musician Miller scolds his wife, feels sorry for his daughter and expects only misfortune from fate. First Ferdinand, then I and his father come to the music teacher’s house. A terrible scene occurs. Von Walter accuse Louise of debauchery, of selling her love. Insulted on behalf of his daughter, Miller kicks the president out of his house. He's going to complain to the Duke. Naive!

The angry president promises to arrest Louise and her mother in order to put them in the pillory.

Ferdinand, in anger, promises his father to reveal his terrible secret: “how they become presidents.”

Von Walter holds a council with Wurm - and one scoundrel tells the other: “We need to discredit Louise in the eyes of her lover.”

Dark affairs connect the president with Wurm: forgery of signatures, false certificates, theft. These people are connected for life.

Louise's father and mother are taken into custody by order of the President "for insulting the Duke." Ferdinand invites his beloved to escape. But she refuses to leave her father and mother. Jealous suspicions are cast into the young man's heart.

Wurm comes to Louise and blackmails her with the fact that her father is in prison - and he could be executed or deprived of the possibility of his usual existence. Under Wurm's dictation, the girl writes a “love letter” to the ridiculous Marshal Kalb - this is supposedly the price for the release of her parents. She is only sixteen years old, what can she understand about human meanness?

Ferdinand believes the slander, confirmed by “written evidence,” and is ready to abandon his beloved, whom he so sincerely swore so recently and trusted so unconditionally.

Milady calls Louise to her and tries to “first intimidate her, and then ransom” Ferdinand from her for large jewelry. Louise behaves in such a way that the Duke's mistress feels ashamed of herself, anger and the desire to destroy a loving and proud girl. Milady even threatens Louise with suicide, and in the end decides to break with the Duke. She writes a farewell letter to her corrupter, rewards the servants with large sums and instructs the marshal to convey her message to the duke.

Blinded by jealousy, Ferdinand decides to poison the “vile snake” - and serves Louise the poison in a glass of lemonade. The girl's dying words prove to him that she is an innocent victim of deceit.

Then Ferdinand also takes poison.

The girl’s parents (they were released from prison) and Mr. President himself are crying over the dead lovers.

Von Walter and Wurm are ready to expose their crimes to the Duke and the people, but their late repentance can no longer bring two tender loving souls back to the feast.

It was a terrible picture - Germany in the 18th century. The Duchy of Württemburg was ruled by Charles, a pompous ruler who sought to turn his residence into a second Versailles. He presented himself as an enlightened monarch. On his initiative, a ducal school was created, which young Friedrich “had the honor” to attend. The educational system was aimed at educating dependent people who were deprived of their own thoughts. The school was nicknamed a “slave plantation.” And, in order not to drown out the wonderful impulses of the soul, the young man began to seek solace in literature. Lessing, Klinger, Wieland, Burger, Goethe, Schubert - these are the names thanks to which a new genius of German literature was born. The colorless world of a remote province, intrigue and crime, the treachery and immorality of the ducal court, the terrible poverty of the people - this is the setting in which the tragic love story of two noble hearts - Louise and Ferdinand - unfolds. Ferdinand's father dreams of strengthening his position by marrying his son to the prince's favorite, Lady Milord. A dirty tangle of intrigue is woven around the pure feeling of love. Love is the force that rules the world. How do you understand what love is? Or what does it mean to love a person? (Students' answers). The concept of true, holy love is what the Bible speaks about (the first letter of the Apostle Paul to the Romans is read: “... The greatest of virtues is love. Love endures for a long time, is merciful, does not envy, does not pout, does not behave discourteously, does not seek its own , does not rush to anger, does not think bad, does not rejoice from untruth, endures everything, believes in everything. Love never fails. Love overshadows the magnitude of sins and never suffers defeat..."). Love always strives to see the one it loves happy. Especially when it comes to a parent's heart. Let us remember Miller’s remark: “a woman’s soul is very subtle even for a bandmaster.” Doesn't this sound paradoxical about Lady Milord? Today, everyone expresses their point of view, divides heroes into positive and negative. Among the negative ones is Lady Milord. And since Bona is condemned, I want to come to her defense. Louise has parents, she has always had a family, and the lady became an orphan when she was thirteen. The father was executed, and the little princess had to escape from England. Bona was left with nothing. Six years of wandering around Germany... Out of despair she wanted to throw herself into the waves of the Elbe - the prince stopped her. Is it her fault that she is accustomed to a rich life, which, like a valuable stone, strives for a worthy setting? Dignity and fate fought within her. The proud British woman resigned herself to fate. In moments of passion, the prince, in order to please her, signed amnesty decrees, stopped sacrifices, and abolished death sentences. Fate suddenly gave her a chance - to have the one her heart desired. And although the mind repeated: “stop!”, the heart did not listen. The conversation with Louise was torment for her, but the decision was clear: to rise above the dirt of the existing world. Lady Milord's life is not an example of nobility, but at the last moment it deserves respect. The heroes of the drama are models for perceiving the world and, in fact, for constructing behavior. The author calls his drama “a bold satire and mockery of the breed of jesters and scoundrels from the nobility.” The work presents two social groups - two worlds that are separated by an abyss. Some live in luxury, oppress others, they are cruel and soulless. Others are poor, but honest and noble. It was to such poor people that Ferdinand, the son of the president, a nobleman, came. And he didn’t come because he fell in love with Louise. He understood the baseness of the moral principles of his class - in the Miller family he found moral satisfaction and spirituality, which were not in his environment. Wurm, President von Walter, the prince, his favorite - this is the aristocratic web in whose network lovers are caught. The son challenges his father and the entire soulless world - “the bill, the sons’ obligation, is torn.” As a result of the intrigue, Louise and Ferdinand die, and Lady Milord breaks with her class. And the greatness of the play lies in its realistic depiction of life’s conflicts. We see before us the injustice that was happening in front of everyone, which we were afraid to talk about, and which appeared before the reader in vivid and convincing images. The problems that the playwright raises in his work are eternal problems that remain relevant for all times. “I have found a world where I feel happy - this is a world of beauty,” Schiller once said. Love, beauty and harmony will forever reign in the Universe.

April 15, 1934 marked 150 years since the first performance of “Cunning and Love” on the stage of the Mannheim Theater in Germany. The performance was a huge success: the prim German audience, contrary to the customs of that time, expressed their approval with stormy applause. “Cunning and Love,” along with Shakespeare’s plays, along with the famous comedies of Beaumarchais “The Barber of Seville” and “The Marriage of Figaro,” never left the repertoire of European and Russian theaters; the play withstood the test of the revolution and is very popular on the Soviet stage. In Moscow it is staged by two theaters: them. Vakhtangov and a branch of the Maly Theater.

What explains this long and lasting success? “Cunning and Love” is a work that shocks viewers with its life truth. The story of the unfortunate Louise Miller, the daughter of a simple musician, and the noble dreamer Ferdinand, who fell victims of selfish calculations, class prejudices and the heartlessness of the aristocratic environment, made and continues to make a strong impression on the audience, who demand from the performance not stage tricks and formalistic trickery, but a truthful reflection of life in everything its diversity and complexity. That is why “Cunning and Love” is one of the favorite folk performances. This also explains the rapid success of the play in the first years after its writing. German public at the end of the 18th century. was brought up on a false classical repertoire. These were rational, cold works, built according to the rules of the dramatic code, which were immutable as points of military regulations. They presented in pompous language, little understood by the general public, the adventures of ancient Greek and Roman commanders and emperors. Most of these plays were translations from French or imitations of the French, who in turn copied the great playwrights of the 17th century: Racine and Corneille. It was courtly - aristocratic dramaturgy. Idealizing ancient heroes, she presented modern kings and nobles hiding under their names in an embellished, ennobled form that had nothing in common with reality. The viewer did not find any resemblance between some petty prince, an ignorant and depraved tyrant who portrayed himself as the head of an “independent” state and traded with his subjects, and the Roman emperor who conquered powerful states, showered benefits on the citizens of his empire and generously forgave the conspirators. The bourgeoisie grew stronger economically and was eager for power: it demanded for itself a new dramaturgy that suited its tastes and served its class goals. First in France, and then in Germany, “philistine drama” was born. One of its creators was Schiller.

“Bourgeois drama” did not then mean a play intended for the bourgeoisie, i.e. petty bourgeois man in the street. It was an “urban” drama, written for various layers of the bourgeoisie: from large to small. Schiller, one of the greatest representatives of the German revolutionary bourgeoisie, in his youth was close to its most radical strata. "Cunning and Love" is a revolutionary play for its time, although it does not contain a direct call for revolution.

Its revolutionary significance lay, first of all, in the fact that it mercilessly exposed the then German feudal system. Schiller had the material at hand - he only needed to transfer to the stage the situation of the Principality of Württemberg, in which he lived. And he succeeded completely. Before the viewer passed in all their disgusting nakedness representatives of the court aristocracy of a certain “German sovereign duke”: President von Walter, who achieved a high position by crime and is ready to marry his son to the duke’s mistress in order to maintain power; the insignificant courtier von Kalb: for him, an event of historical importance is the fact that the Duke put on a caftan of a fashionable color, “goose droppings”; the vile bureaucrat Wurm, a tradesman who betrays his class for the sake of the benefits that service to the nobles brings, a hypocrite and a rogue; finally, the Duke himself: he does not directly participate in the play, but is invisibly present on the stage all the time. This is a tyrant and a voluptuous man who sells his subjects as soldiers to the British in order to give diamonds to his mistress. Schiller showed the face of the German nobility to the masses - and for this the reactionary criticism of the time took up arms against him, declaring the play a “disgusting caricature” and “tasteless nonsense.”

But the revolutionary significance of the play is not only that it tore off the mask from the German aristocracy. Schiller contrasted caste prejudices with new rules of behavior. He proclaimed the freedom of every person to control his own destiny, the right to develop his spiritual abilities and not to subordinate his feelings to petty selfish calculations or class prejudices.

Of course, this was just a preaching of bourgeois individualism. But compared to the noble-feudal ideology, this individualism was still a step forward. For von Walter, love is just a whim that has no meaning: “You say the girl is pretty; I am pleased that my son has taste. If he sings serious promises to a fool, so much the better, it means he’s on his own, he can even become president.” Therefore, von Walter believes that his son Ferdinand’s love for Louise Miller cannot serve as an obstacle to Ferdinand’s marriage to the Duke’s mistress Lady Milford.

Louise's father holds exactly the opposite views. He says to Wurm, who is wooing his daughter: “I don’t force my daughter. It’s great for her to have you in her heart: let her try to be happy with you. If you disagree, so much the better... She should live with you, not me. Out of sheer stubbornness, I won’t force her to have a husband she doesn’t like.” When Wurm asks him to influence his daughter with his authority, Miller gives an extremely bold formulation of the “right to love” for those times: “A lover who calls on his father for help, I - with your permission - do not believe in a penny... It is necessary so that the girl would rather send her father and mother to hell than break up with him... This, in my opinion, is a good job. This is love!"

Germany at the end of the 18th century. was a poor, backward country. It was fragmented into many small and large principalities, very weakly united among themselves. The peasantry was crushed by feudal oppression, the bourgeoisie was politically powerless. She created a philosophy and literature of world significance that overthrew feudalism in theory, but could not destroy it in practice. This inconsistency is clearly evident in Schiller's plays. Its revolutionaries are crazy loners who try to overthrow the old order by the power of their convictions, secret conspiracies or anarchist actions (Karl Moor in The Robbers, Marquis Posa in Don Carlos, Fiesco in The Fiesco Conspiracy). Ferdinand, a revolutionary in the field of everyday life and morality, is also a loner: he is powerless to put his stormy protests and fiery speeches into action. Schiller does not see genuine revolutionaries and genuine revolutionary deeds around him - therefore his plays suffer from rhetoric, his heroes recite a lot and do little. The drama “Cunning and Love” is not without these shortcomings, but it has enormous artistic merits, without which it would not be could have stayed on stage... These advantages are the flagellating realism in the depiction of representatives of the aristocracy, magnificent language that deeply moves the viewer in lyrical places, making him laugh and be indignant, a masterfully constructed intrigue that keeps the audience in suspense until the last moment.

What is the value of the play for the Soviet audience?

It lies not only in its historical and educational significance and artistic merits. “Cunning and Love” has still not lost its relevance. Schiller denounced the feudal lords in it, but he also denounced the layers of the big bourgeoisie who were in alliance with the nobility. Many of the ills of feudalism revealed in the play were inherited by the capitalist system.

In modern bourgeois countries, as in the domains of the German princeling, the best human feelings are valued for money: marriage is a trade transaction; bourgeois morals in their depravity are in no way inferior to the morals of the aristocracy of the 18th century. The trade in cannon fodder occurs on a scale that the German feudal lords, with their artisanal techniques and dwarf turns, could only envy.

Schiller attacked the evils of the feudal system, but at the same time he attacked the bourgeoisie. Finally, his fiery call for the complete emancipation of the individual from the power of money and caste prejudices, the free development of a person’s spiritual capabilities, is truly heard and implemented only in the country of socialism under construction, in a country where contradictions between the individual and the collective are eliminated.