Maggie Fyfe

Poetic Rebellion: Divine Imager y and Social Justice in Schiller's The Robbers

Maggie Fyfe

Schiller's drama The Robbers, published in 1781, chronicles a conflict between two brothers, Karl and Franz. The drama emphasizes the dissent against authoritarian power structures characteristic of Germany's Sturm und Drang period. These oppressive powers manifest themselves in many ways, such as the structure of a patriarchal family, the church, and a tyrannical government. Karl's band of robbers and Karl's fiancé Amalia grapple in particular with these institutional power structures, and consider how they inform the moral lens through which they view their world. The moral ambiguity of Schiller’s drama brought about by the subversion of oppressive power structures is framed by a sense of divine judgement represented by paradisal and infernal language. The juxtaposition between Schiller's imagery of heaven and hell illustrates two parallel and paradoxical narrative tensions within the play. Whereas Karl's band of robbers justify their devilish deeds as an attempt to achieve paradisal liberation from authoritarian power structures, Amalia submits herself to her angelic perception of Karl, confined by a hellish, violent passion imposed by the institution of marriage. The band of robbers speak in images of hell as they measure the perceived evil of their thievery against the corrupt nature of their world. At the same time, they strive for a kind of Paradise that exists outside of the societal expectations of institutional au-

Babel Volume XXI 87 thorities. As Spiegelberg first proposes that the group form a brotherhood of thieves, his descriptions of infernal violence are means of justifying liberation from these authoritarian powers: “Do you want to take the King's shilling - if they would trust the looks of you, that's the first question - and do your stint in Purgatory while you are still on earth, at the mercy of a splenetic tyrant of a corporal?”1 Spiegelberg suggests that life under a tyrant's rule may be akin to hell on Earth. As he alludes to Purgatory, he suggests that this way of life produces an eternal yearning for an independent, enlightened Paradise that cannot be realized within corrupt society. This passage establishes the framework for a sense of youthful dissidence that pervades the play, as Spiegelberg then examines the moral implications of the robbers' thievery: What does it matter where your soul goes? When troops of couriers gallop ahead to announce our descent, so that the devils put on their Sunday best, root the soot of millennia out of their eyes, and horned heads in thousands poke from the smoky chimneys of their sulphur-ovens to see our arrival? Comrades! Away! Comrades! Is there anything in the world so glorious, so thrilling? Come, comrades, and away!2 In this passage, the hellish reality of an authoritarian regime is contrasted with the arguably more favourable prospect of being punished in the actual place of the condemned. In this way, Spiegelberg suggests that the sense of social justice he believes to be implied in their thievery counters the moral implications of their wrongdoing. The passage to hell is depicted as a veiled yet vividly illustrated liberation as Spiegelberg suggests their descent will be met by celebration and as he imagines being greeted by devils ironically clad in “their Sunday best.”3 He expresses his perception of their rebellion as “so glorious, so thrilling,”4 evoking a pathos in his comrades who feel alienated from the earthly world. Later, Roller, another one of the thieves, expands upon this hellish imagery as he explicitly alludes to Dante's Inferno. He exclaims

88 Babel Volume XXI that the brotherhood of thieves will continue to undermine authoritarian power structures through their robbery, even: “if the nine circles of hell surround us!”5 This infernal image is particularly compelling in its intertextuality. This line places the robber's rebellion into a more widely accessible consideration of the ambiguous morality that presents itself in the subversion of institutional power structures. The robbers engage in brutal violence against innocent people in their youthful defiance. Thus, while their behaviour perpetuates the kind of social injustice that they are attempting to combat, the imagery of their speech offers a kind of poetic justice against the oppressive ideology of institutional power structures. Schiller engages in a kind of literary rebellion, a purgation of emotion that exists through his drama. In this way, his robbers find a kind of paradisal liberation in hellish images that poetically subvert institutional authority Inversely, Amalia is paradoxically confined by her angelic perception of her fiancé, Karl, as her love blinds her from coming to understand his submission to devilish defiance. In the same

way that the robbers seek freedom from institutional power structures, Amalia is bound by the institution of marriage. Amalia's seemingly heavenly conception of Karl is illustrated in her lyric poem at the onset of Act III: Fiery hearts around each other furled, Our lips and ears entranced - before our eyes The night - and our two spirits heavenward whirled And his kiss - o taste of Paradise! As two burning flames will grasp and cling.6 Amalia appears to describe her love for Karl in angelic terms, as she believes that he has brought her a kind of heaven on Earth. Her speech is infused with a naïve romanticism, as she equates his kiss with the “taste of paradise.”7 She also states that together, their spirits “heavenward whirled,”8 although this entrance into heaven also implies a kind of death. While she initially imagines her betrothed as a paradisal presence, under the surface of her

Babel Volume XXI 89 speech also lies a contradictory sense of confinement, as she is a servant to her love. Schiller describes the doomed union that characterizes Karl and Amalia's engagement as “fiery hearts around each other furled” and “as two burning flames will grasp and cling.”9 While the equation of their love with fire could characterize burning desire, it also implies a kind of destructive, violent passion. Amalia is blinded by her heavenly conception of Karl. She is entrapped by her passionate belief in Karl's quasidivinity, as she is bound by the patriarchal power structure imposed by the prospect of their marriage. This implies a kind of cosmic convergence of heaven and hell. Later, Amalia's description of Karl's portrait offers insight into her distortedly divine perception of him, “No, no! It is not he. In Heaven's name that is not Karl… these dull colours cannot reflect the divine spirit that shone in his fiery eye.”10 Through the heavenly lens of her love, Amalia asserts that Karl has a “divine spirit.”11 Embedded in her speech lies a hellish, burning image, as she recognizes “his fiery eye.”12 There exists an implied tension in Amalia's descriptions of Karl, between her angelic portrait of him and the presence of a fiery, imprisoning passion. Amalia's infernal love flame most clearly manifests itself in the play's conclusion, as she asks Karl to kill her upon learning that they cannot be together. She exclaims, “then let Dido teach me to die!”13 Like Virgil's Dido, Amalia is consumed by her passion as manifested in her love flame. Once more, Schiller's intertextuality places the moral character of the drama within a cosmic context, as Amalia's love for Karl becomes not a means for a heavenly ascent but rather a hellish end. Like Dido, this infernal passion strips her not only of female agency distinct from sentimental romance but also of her life. Schiller weaves images of heaven and hell into his dialogue as a means of implicating a standard of divine moral judgement upon Amalia's love and the robbers' defiance. Angelic and devilish descriptions offer a kind of paradoxical tension between the robber's rebellion as a means of social liberation and Amalia's

90 Babel Volume XXI love flame as a means of imprisoning, violent passion imposed by patriarchal expectations. In creating this tension, Schiller deftly employs poetic language as a means to consider the moral implications of defying or submitting to institutional authority. In this way, The Robbers exemplifies Sturm und Drang literature, illustrating a kind of poetic rebellion that boldly blends vivid, intertextual images of heaven and hell.

Notes 1 Fredrich Schiller, The Robbers and Wallenstein, trans. F.J. Lamport (London: Penguin Classics, 1979), 44. 2 Schiller 47. 3 Schiller 47. 4 Schiller 47. 5 Schiller 92. 6 Schiller 93. 7 Schiller 93. 8 Schiller 93. 9 Schiller 93. 10 Schiller 63. 11 Schiller 63. 12 Schiller 63. 13 Schiller 158.

Bibliography Schiller, Fredrich. The Robbers and Wallenstein. Translated by F.J. Lamport. London: Penguin Classics, 1979.