Schiller the Dramatist: A Study of Gesture in the Plays (review)

Well-argued, researched, and concisely stated, this valuable text demonstrates that a study of gesture and perspective in Schiller’s dramas as theater yields new insights and contemporary relevance to each of the author’s exhaustively studied masterworks. Guthrie offers a thorough digest of previous critical opinions in admirable footnotes that follow each discussion in an unobtrusive, accessible way. Other standard features include the author’s own English translations of quotations and titles, an informative bibliography as well as an unusually detailed index.

As is appropriate, he discusses many performances of each play, those that appeared in Schiller’s lifetime and recent productions, especially those that were staged after World War II. With the help of Schiller’s own comments, correspondence, and theoretical writings, he illuminates the action of these thoroughly familiar dramas in surprising, insightful ways, arguing that the theatrical elements which he has featured so prominently in this book bring us closer to the author’s intention than the largely textual analyses of the past.

He begins with Schiller’s youthful plays; connecting his use of gesture to the theories of his contemporary, Johann Jakob Engel, whose Ideen zu einer Mimik (2 volumes, 1785, reprint, 1971) was a standard text of the day. Guthrie demonstrates how Schiller moved well beyond his source, using extravagant gestures, such as Karl Moor running into a tree in Die Räuber. Yet Schiller was consistently tailoring his use of space, facial expression, stage direction, physical and metaphorical actions to the arguments and characterizations of each of the first three plays. Guthrie also identifies other sources of inspiration for Schiller’s use of gesture, as it is broadly understood. These are “his experience of life and the performing arts at the Karlsschule, his reading, especially of dramatic literature and the Bible, and his medical studies, including his interest in physiology and psychology” (189).

The next section of the book delineates Schiller’s “transition to the Classical style” (99). These chapters interpret Don Karlos and Wallenstein. In the former, Guthrie points out how the use of silence makes for effective theater and interpretation. The ways in which Schiller prepares for the triumph of the Grand Inquisitor and, to a lesser extent, the king, are also fruitfully demonstrated.

In Wallenstein, Guthrie discusses the author’s use of space in connection with Wallenstein’s “desire to control space in the literal sense and in the deeper figurative sense indicated by his concern with astrology” (127). This kind of discussion lends an overwhelming sense of inevitability to the downfall of Schiller’s protagonist.

As Guthrie moves to the later plays, he takes issue with the grouping of these works under the designation “Weimar Classicism.” His discussion of reasons why this has led to critical misunderstandings serves as an excellent introduction to this part of the text (131). Whether readers agree with all of his arguments or not, Guthrie certainly demonstrates that the lens he has chosen to apply to the dramas can yield more coherent understandings of such plays as Die Jungfrau, Wilhelm Tell, and Die Braut von Messina than previous analyses have offered. His discussion of Schiller’s use of choruses throughout the action of Die Braut von Messina is particularly intriguing.

Guthrie also successfully illustrates the “multi-dimensionality” (190) of Schiller’s use of gesture, showing how he became more restrained in his use of gesture while continuing to include it in the late dramas by way of stage directions in order to emphasize psychological elements of the protagonists’ characters, rather than the primarily abstract ideas that are often championed by critics who limit their perspective to the written words of the characters alone.

The lasting merit of Guthrie’s book consists in the way it broadens the appreciation of readers and theatergoers alike for physical aspects of Schiller’s plays, and, by extension, of any playwright’s drama. In Schiller’s case we become increasingly aware of aspects of the plays that were of great importance to the...