Despite debate over its historical accuracy and the question of the existence of a historical Tell figure, Wilhelm Tell has been repeatedly cited as a champion of Swiss independence. But while the rebellion is central to the structure of the work, critics point to the moral autonomy of Tell as its true center. In his aesthetic and philosophical writings, Schiller eschewed the revolutionary stance he had maintained in his early work and turned instead to the arts and personal moral responsibility as the principal agents of social change. Considering the natural state of human psychology to be driven by the conflict between the Stofftrieb (sensedrive) and the Formtrieb (form-drive), Schiller describes a state of "aesthetic freedom," where either drive ceases to dominate and reason and feeling exist in harmony. Many critics feel that the character of Tell represents the transition of an individual from the natural to aesthetic state of being. Indeed, critic Robert L. Jamison argues that the confrontation between Tell and Parricida is designed not to further justify Tell's action against Gessler, but is to be viewed in contrast to his rescue of Baumgarten in the opening scene: "Tell, the hunter, could save men's lives; Tell the father and husband, can help men save their souls."
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In Wilhelm Tell, it is not so evident as in the opening scene of Demetrius that 'die Szene wird zum Tribunal', in the sense that the audience is invited to consider itself a party to debate.29 However, it is worth recalling that during the writing of this play Schiller, in his letters, referred to it as a 'Volksstück' and as 'volksmässig'; he was clearly conscious of the play's potential audience, and was concerned about its reception both in Germany and in Switzerland.30 Axel Gellhaus has traced the development from the 'closed' type of chorus Schiller employs in Die Braut von Messina to the 'open' scenes of Wilhelm Tell with reference to Schiller's experience of theatre audiences in Lauchstädt in July 1803.31 Certainly it is striking to contrast the comment about the earlier play made by Schiller in April of that year: '. . . wobei ich mehr an mich selbst als an ein Publicum ausser mir dachte',32 with his enthusiasm in July for the 'new audience' he had witnessed in Lauchstädt, and his resolve to write 'viel bestimmter und zweckmässiger' for the theatre as a result.33 What Schiller seems to be aiming at in Wilhelm Tell is, in the words of his essay on the employment of a chorus in tragedy, the presentation of 'das Volk' as neither 'rohe Gewalt', nor as 'Staat' (an 'abgezogenen Begriff) but as 'die sinnlich lebendige Masse'.34
18 Fritz Martini ("Wilhelm Tell, der ästhetische Staat und der ästhetische Mensch," Der Deutschunterricht. Beiträge zu seiner Praxis und wissenschaftliche Grundlegung 12 [1960]: 90-118) stressed the inner connection between the philosophical letters on aesthetic education and the poetic-dramatic work. However, rather than allow for possible differences, Martini made the drama answer to the theory. For only by conceiving of Tell as "die eigene, in sich in ihrer autonomen Menschlichkeit bedeutungsvolle Mitte des Dramas," i.e., the autonomous province of the poetic-human, Martini argues, can the drama satisfy the aesthetic requirements that the "classical" Schiller had been used to expecting (p. 94). Martini's overeagerness to determine the (classical) form of the drama caused him to seriously undermine the social-political contours of the dramatic writing. The state, for him, is simply the aesthetic state, i.e., a work of art. "Dieser Staat der Freiheit ist der ästhetische Staat" (p. 99). As I had hoped to demonstrate in chapter 5, the aesthetic state, following the "Ausbildung des Empfindungsvermögens" (Letter 8) via aesthetics, the cultivated human being and the "merely" rational human being are to be fused more completely in the truly moral-rational state. For Martini, the representation of the Swiss in Schiller's drama simply projects an "Idealbild der politischen Volksgemeinschaft" (p. 99). 2ff7e9595c
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