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Encyclopedia entry: Schiller, (Johann Christoph) Friedrich von
- Article from:
- The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre
- Author:
Copyright© The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre 1996, originally published by Oxford University Press 1996. (Hide copyright information)
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Schiller, (Johann Christoph) Friedrich von
(1759–1805), outstanding German poet and dramatist. He was only 22 when his first play
Die Räuber
, about the hostility between two brothers, was accepted for the theatre at
Mannheim
, where it was produced in 1782 with immediate success. Schiller was appointed official dramatist to the theatre, writing for it
Fiesco
(1783) and
Kabale und Liebe
(1784). He was heavily in debt, however, having taken refuge in Mannheim, where he was living under an assumed name, from his duties as an army doctor. After the production of his first historical tragedy,
Don Carlos
(1787), he published two books, one of which, on the Thirty Years War, provided ...