Schiller the Killer: Wilhelm Tell and the Decriminalization of Murder

GAILHART Schiller the Killer: Wilhelm Tell and the Decriminalization of Murder When confronted with the rich variety of Wilhelm Tell, with its cast of hundreds and more than fifty speaking roles, one might reasonably ask, what is this piece about? The long thematic arm of SchUler's late play embraces a coUection of issues, beginning with the struggle to parse authority and remain loyal to the Holy Roman Empire, whUe resisting the Emperor's representatives, and abhorring the Hapsburgs. It is also about the opposition of good and evü, good being personified Ui the numerous "wackere" and "biedere" native Swiss and evU Ui the undifferentiated bad guys from elsewhere who govern the cantons for the Emperor. It is about nature, the mountains, lakes, and vaUeys that constitute the Swiss "Boden," the natural and poUtical ground that the men wiU make a stand for. It is about the porous membrane that separates pubUc and private spheres, the poUtical and the personal—the major political violations that occur being intrusions into the private life of the famUy, beginning with Wotfenschiessen 's assault on Baumgarten's wtfe, continuing with the bunding of Melchtal's father, and culminating Ui Geßler's forcing TeU to aim an arrow at his own son's head. The play is also about romance. Though Rudenz and Berta seem curiously superfluous to SchUler's busy plot program, they do love, struggle and unite amid the din. It covers the later stages of romance, namely postmarital , as we look Ui on the domestic matters of TeU's famUy and Stauffacher and his wife. Beyond this, there is singing, fishing, herding, storms, a dramatic oath at dawn, the construction of a fortress or prison, fighting, chUdren, the elderly—aU the diverse elements of broad monocultural pageantry. The play is also concerned with Wilhelm Tell, who, as legend prescribes , shoots the apple from his son's head, saving both of theft lives. It is, however, TeU's second shot, the one that kiUs Geßler, that provokes this essay, Ui which I will contend that all of the extravagant pageantry and pre-national nationaUsm function as support and backdrop for the play's highly transgressive argument for a justifiable murder. I label the argument transgressive because, unlike numerous commentators who have found support for TeU's actions Ui estabUshed law, I believe that this murder transgresses legal codes, and that its justification or decriminahzation resides Ui an appeal to extra-legal experience. Goethe Yearbook XII (2004) 198 GaU Hart Demonstrations of the "legaUty" of TeU's "justifiable homicide," which incurs no punishment, generaUy depend on either the concept of Notwehr or that of Selbsthilfe. Critics invoke Roman law and its various Germanic descendents, which authorize an individual to take action to avoid an impending threat, where the ruUng hierarchy has failed to protect Ufe and property.1 Notwehr, or simple kUling in self-defense, is defined very clearly Ui the Carolina as an individual's acting "zu rettung semes leibs und lebens" (#139)2 However, Ui #142, it is specified that this exculpatory condition does not obtain Ui cases where the perpetrator has waited and küled the offender in a moment when the latter was not a threat: daß der entleibt, nach gethaner ersten benöttigung gewichen, dem der totschläger auß freihem willen vnd vngenötter ding nachgeuolgt, vnd jn aUererst inn der nachuolg erschlagen het. Mer, so fürgewendt wftd, der todtschläger wer dem benöttigen wol fügUcher weiß vnd on ferUcheyt seins leibs, lebens, ehren vnd guten leumuts halben entwichen, darumb die entleibung durch den verklagten totschläger nit auß einer rechten entschuldigten notweer, sondern bösUch geschehen wer, vnd darumb peinlich gestraft werden soft. (91) Thus TeU's attack is specificaUy disquaUfied as defensible Ui the foundational legal document of the Holy Roman Empire. Notwehr does not apply. Selbsthilfe is a much broader concept than Notwehr and SchUler himself invoked it in his correspondence with Iffland, where he famously argued for the retention of the two most awkward sections of the play, the TeU monologue and the Parricida episode, because he felt that they explained the murder and anchored its justification. In support of...