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. A moral qualities He doesn’t care about his future daughter-in-law and his own son’s feelings 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. In heart young man Jealous suspicions are cast.
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.
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759 – 1805) entered the 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 was the culmination early creativity Schiller and the quintessence of 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 nature 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. Nobleman Ferdinand von Walter and the daughter of a simple musician Louise Miller present 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.
Just artistic methods 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 everyone acting persons dramas. 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 heroes. In moments of special spiritual struggle and moral tension, Schiller chooses the most complex speech patterns.
The heroes of 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 theatrical arts of that time, therefore it firmly and for a long time 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.
After five years of wandering and constant need settled in Weimar, where Goethe lived. The friendship that soon arose between them enriched both humanly and creatively.
The pinnacle of Schiller's early work was the drama "Cunning and Love" (1783), which the author classified as a "philistine tragedy" genre. The term bourgeois tragedy, like bourgeois drama, appeared in the 18th century to designate plays of serious, conflictual content from the life of people of the so-called third estate. Previously, characters of this kind could only be portrayed in comedies. Their appearance in plays of a serious, not comic, and sometimes tragic nature testified to the democratization of art. Schiller enriched this type of drama, giving his work a high freedom-loving meaning and a new scale: the fate of his heroes, subjects of one of the dwarf German principalities, is connected with the pre-revolutionary atmosphere of the time. F. Engels called this play “the first German politically tendentious drama,” including Schiller as an ideologically active artist on a par with Aristophanes, Dante, and Cervantes.
At first glance, the drama “Cunning and Love” may seem less ambitious than “The Robbers” or “The Fiesco Conspiracy” (Schiller’s second drama, dedicated to the Republican uprising against the power of the Genoese Doge in the 16th century). The action here takes place within the borders of a German principality, in the sphere of personal life: we are talking about tragic fate two young people who fell in love with each other - Louise Miller, the daughter of a simple music teacher, and Ferdinand von Walter, the son of the president (first minister). But behind this lie the contradictions of the social system of Germany at that time. The drama is based on a clash between antagonistic classes: the feudal aristocracy, then still all-powerful, and the petty, powerless burghers (third estate). The play is deeply realistic. She recreates pictures of German life at the end of the 18th century. The musician Miller's family is similar to the one in which Schiller grew up. He knew well the morals of the court aristocracy, and experienced the oppression of tyranny. The characters have real prototypes from Karl Eugene's circle.
In this drama Schiller almost abandoned the rhetorical pathos so characteristic of his first dramatic works. The rhetoric heard in the speeches of Ferdinand, and sometimes Louise, does not determine the general tone here - it becomes a natural sign of the language of young people inspired by progressive ideas. The language of other characters has a different character. The speech of the musician Miller and his wife is very expressive: spontaneous, lively, sometimes rude.
Ferdinand and Louise dream of uniting their destinies despite class barriers. These barriers, however, are strong. The principality is ruled by the aristocracy, robbery and robbery reign, rights ordinary people are trampled upon brazenly and cynically. Young men are sold as soldiers, destined for reprisals against the American people (the North American states at that time were fighting for their independence from England). The pomp of the princely court is paid for with the tears and blood of his subjects.
Collisions, developed by Schiller go beyond those typical of “philistine drama”. “Cunning and Love” is characterized by a revolutionary pathos, which is not so characteristic of this genre. Here, as in “Robbers,” the influence of the pre-storm atmosphere on the eve is clearly felt French Revolution, but at the same time the backwardness of Germany was demonstrated in all its ugliness. The love of Ferdinand and Louise resists inhumane orders, but cannot overcome them. President Walter’s calculations do not include his son’s happiness: he sees him as the husband of Lady Milford, the Duke’s former mistress. The president's secretary Wurm, who appreciated her beauty, would not mind marrying Louise (Wurm is a “speaking” name, this word means: worm). The cunning, calculating Wurm, similar in his cold egoism to Franz Moor, willingly takes the initiative in the insidious intrigue being launched against Louise. To force the girl to abandon her lover, her parents are arrested and threatened with death; Louise's mother dies, unable to bear the experience, her father is in prison.
Ferdinand, youthfully impatient, inspired by love and the dream of social equality (Schiller endows him with the traits of a “stormy genius”), calls Louise to leave with him and promises her happiness. But Louise, faithful to Ferdinand, cannot leave her father. The daughter of poor parents, she is more bound by circumstances, her attachment to loved ones, and her sense of duty towards them. Ferdinand, brought up in a different environment, simply does not understand all this. Louise's refusal to leave with him means, as it seems to him, that she does not love him. He has no idea about other motives. Reviews of the drama wrote about Louise's timidity. But isn’t it necessary to have spiritual courage in order to sacrifice love for the sake of loved ones and not internally submit to someone else’s will?
Saving her father, Louise writes dictating a “love letter” to one of the courtiers. Wurm is sure that Ferdinand, having found the letter, will himself abandon Louise. His calculation is partly justified: Ferdinand does not have enough faith in Louise to guess that the letter is forged. But he has enough strength not to change his love, not to give it up for mockery. He executes both himself and Louise.
"Cunning and Love"- a drama of high tragic sound. The love and death of Ferdinand and Louise make us remember the fate of Shakespeare's heroes Romeo and Juliet. It is difficult to imagine, however, that anyone, even Juliet herself, could dissuade Romeo of her love for him. Shakespeare's heroes are spiritually whole people. In Schiller, even ideal heroes do not have such integrity.
In the finale of Shakespeare's tragedy, the love of Romeo and Juliet overcomes the family feud that cost them their lives. In the finale of Schiller's drama, the dying Ferdinand extends his hand to the repentant president. But this motive is not organic to drama; it only testifies to Schiller’s enlightenment illusions. The power of love between two, as shown by the entire course of the action, cannot change the state of society. Another thing is impressive: love prevails over deceit. The images of Ferdinand and Louise are ultimately perceived as a symbolic embodiment of moral triumph high love over the base forces of evil.
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Homework on the topic: An essay with elements of presentation of Schiller’s drama “Cunning and Love”.
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 tragic story the love of two noble hearts - Louise and Ferdinand. 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 always strives to see the one it loves happy. Especially when it comes to a parent’s heart. Let's remember Miller's remark: “ female soul very thin 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 stand up for her. 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.
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, Bürger, Goethe, Schubert - these are the names thanks to which a new genius of German literature was born.
“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.
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 to overshadow the magnitude of sins and never suffers defeat...”).
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 the work are: eternal problems, which remain relevant for all times.
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 foundations 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.”
I.K. Schiller (1759-1805) entered literature at the end of the Sturm und Drang movement as its successor, who accepted and rejected much of what had accumulated in the 1770s. his work expressed the protest of progressive burgher youth against spiritual oppression and political tyranny.
The culmination of Schiller's early work is his third play, the "philistine tragedy" "Cunning and Love" (1783, first "Louise Miller")
Schiller again turned to modern issues, but he has now escaped the conventions of portrayal in The Highwaymen. The characters and episodes of the “philistine tragedy” are correlated with real facts and prototypes, which are presented not in portraits, but in a generalized form.
The political problem of despotism, the omnipotence of favorites, and the lack of rights of the burgher is intertwined with moral and social problems. It's about about class barriers in society. Schiller's Rousseauian pathos is clear here. The love of the nobleman Ferdinand von Walter, the president's son, for the daughter of the simple musician Miller is not only unthinkable in terms of class, but also threatens the president's personal plans for his son's marriage to the Duke's mistress Lady Milford. The instrument of Secretary Wurm's intrigue was the unlimited lawlessness of power. Under the threat of her father's death, Louise writes, under Wurm's dictation, a love letter to the vulgar man, which is planted on Ferdinand to prove to him his beloved's infidelity. But the outcome of the intrigue is different than what the president thought - Ferdinand cannot survive the collapse of his faith in Louise’s purity, he chooses death both for her and for himself.
The action develops intensely; the artist’s maturity is felt in the play. Schiller's mastery. Only one episode has its own significance - this is the valet's story about sending recruits to America: their lives were paid for Lady Milford's jewelry. This scene carries a double ideological load: the massacre of the brave protesters is impressively described. The emphasis of this story is given by the fact that German recruits are sent to the English troops to fight against the rebel colonies.
The development of characters also speaks of a more complex reflection of reality. The black and white colors of “Robbers” are replaced by a varied range. Old man Miller is portrayed especially truthfully: at the moment of insulting his daughter, a sense of self-esteem awakens in this humiliated musician - he sends the president out, although he speaks in respectful formulas. The concept of honor for Miller and Louise is full of moral thought, supported. Religious feeling. It is this consciousness that prevents Louise from breaking her oath of silence and justifying herself to Ferdinand.
The image of Lady Milford is also complex. Schiller ennobled the traditional figure of the “fallen woman” in bourgeois drama with the tragic circumstances of her youth and the idea of “a beneficial influence on the Duke,” in whom she believes until the valet reveals the truth to her. The image is dynamic and develops throughout the entire plot.
The success of "Cunning and Love" could compete with "Robbers". And this drama has firmly entered the theatrical repertoire. “The Robbers”, “The Fiesco Conspiracy” and “Cunning and Love”, despite all their differences, form an ideological and artistic unity. It was these three early plays that cemented Schiller's reputation as an ardent champion of freedom.