Friedrich Schiller by John D. Simons (review)

Book Reviews267 they are not the only possible opinions, and the thorough student of Heine should not be content with them, but should consult the whole range of discussion and especially the dialogue in book reviews" (xii-xiii). In point of fact, each user of the bibliography is free to take or leave such pithy evaluations as "exceptionally sensitive interpretation," "important contribution ," "far-fetched," or "stunningly unreadable"; more important are Sammons' helpful pointers on the gist of a given argument and on the author's methodological orientation. These should save the harried Heine student from many a wild-goose chase. The bibliography is ordered according to eight broad headings: Editions; Bibliography and Research Reports; Biographical Studies; Philological Studies; Letters; General Expositions and Commentary; Criticism; and Reception, Reputation, Influence, and Comparative Studies. Six subheadings under Criticism identify the broad categories of Heine's oeuvre. Two comprehensive indexes (Authors and Editors, Works and Subjects) further facilitate the search for specific material. A sampling ofthe entries reveals absolute accuracy, which is not to say that there may not be minor errors in bibliographical (or typographical) detail. It would be miraculous if there were none in a major work ofthis type. Given the fact that Sammons himself has obviously had a hand in every aspect of this project, however, I suspect that the bibliography is entirely reliable. Such is the quality of work we have come to expect from him. GEORGE F. PETERS University of New Mexico JOHN D. SIMONS. Friedrich Schiller. Boston: Twayne, 1981. 163 p. This is, on the whole, a rather useful little book intended for the nonspecialist. As the author tells us in his preface, he is well aware of all he has had to sacrifice to the limits of space: Schiller's historical writings, The Ghostseer, Demetrius, On Grace and Dignity, the Kallias Letters, and some other theoretical writings. While he does concentrate in depth on the major essays On the Aesthetic Education ofMan and On Naive and Sentimental Poetry, he neither discusses Schiller's relationship to Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Goethe, and other thinkers, nor does he take issue with the views of others on Schiller. Simons has observed that "Schiller's writings revolve around a few basic ideas" (131). This appears to have determined the method of organizing the material in his book. He begins with a three-page chronology that obviates his using precious space on biographical details, and then he devotes a chapter each to Schiller's aesthetics, poetry, drama of the early and middle period, drama of the classical period, and the conclusion. The discussions of the dramas all follow the pattern: genesis of the piece, plot summary, and analysis. In view of what has been sacrificed to the exigencies of space, it is a bit disappointing to find that nearly one-fifth of the entire volume consists of plot summaries of the plays. Apparently, by discussing Schiller's aesthetics in his first chapter, he seeks to make clear at the outset Schiller's artistic intentions in the poems and dramas. Such a gain, however, is achieved at the risk of giving the 268Rocky Mountain Review nonspecialist — at whom, after all, the work is directed — the false impression that, let us say, On the Aesthetic Education of Man was written before the composition of "Die Götter Griechenlands" or Don Carlos. Both "Das Lied von der Glocke" and "Das eleusische Fest" are called ballads (55), but the Fricke and Goepfert edition of Schiller (Hanser, 1958) lists the first under Lieder and the other under philosophische Gedichte. Beate Pinkerneil has included neither in Das große deutsche Balladenbuch (Athenäum, 1978), nor does any other collection of ballads with which I am acquainted. In his discussion of the poem "Nänie," Simons makes the unqualified assertion that the ancient Greeks did not believe in life after death, a curious generalization indeed. And in explanation of the metrical form of this elegy, he misquotes the last line of Schiller's clever illustrative poem Das Distichon by giving the last word as ab instead of herab, thus turning the fifth foot, a dactyl, into a trochee. This distortion is not at all relieved by the infelicitous rendering into...