A National Repertoire: Friedrich Schiller, August Wilhelm Iffland and the German Theatre 1780-1814

弗里德里希·席勒(Friedrich Schiller，1759-1805)可以说是德国最伟大的剧作家。然而，也许令人惊讶的是，他戏剧产生的戏剧背景以及他与戏剧界的紧张关系被评论家们忽视了。我的研究项目分析了席勒与他那个时代的戏剧界的关系，同时对他的伟大戏剧同龄人奥古斯特·威廉·伊夫兰(奥古斯特·威廉·伊夫兰，1759-1814)的职业生涯进行了评估。与席勒同年出生的伊夫兰是他那一代人中最伟大的演员，并成为18世纪80年代和90年代表演最多的剧作家。他的多愁善感和道德说教的家庭戏剧与席勒英雄的诗歌悲剧完全相反，完美地迎合了当代观众的品味，他的出现和成功反映了德国戏剧作为一个资产阶级制度努力站稳脚跟的文化环境。我的研究追溯了席勒和伊夫兰截然不同的戏剧作品及其对戏剧环境的影响为19世纪德国古典剧目奠定了基础的方式。席勒和伊夫兰活跃的时期是德国戏剧生活在稳定和受人尊敬方面增加的时期。站立剧院的数量增加了，这在一定程度上是由执政的王子资助的，表演业的声望也有所提高。但大多数影院的生存能力仍然岌岌可危，剧目取决于受欢迎程度。与此同时，有几家剧院被称为国家剧院，它们渴望提高观众的品味，并开发出具有代表性的剧目。席勒和伊夫兰在曼海姆国家剧院度过了他们的早期职业生涯，他们在那里的竞争揭示了当时的主流品味和趋势，包括狄德罗、法国喜剧《op8ra-comique》、Sturm and Orang(风暴与压力)和莎士比亚在剧目组成上的舞台接待。后来，当伊夫兰担任柏林国家剧院院长(1796-1814)时，他不再将席勒视为竞争对手，而是将其视为盟友，席勒的文化声望以及与歌德在魏玛宫廷剧院的联系可以为他的柏林事业增添光彩，并增强其民族自豪感。我认为，昔日对手之间的这种奇怪的共生关系为我们理解德国古典剧目的出现提供了一把钥匙。目的和对象戏剧剧目的发展、戏剧的文化政治和舞台环境的实用性是席勒戏剧出现的因素，这些因素在很大程度上被评论家忽视了，他们的兴趣到目前为止主要放在文学上，根据戏剧发展的文学叙事，几乎排除了所有上演的戏剧。我的目的是：将席勒作为戏剧家的发展放在他那个时代戏剧的背景下呈现；展示伊夫兰与席勒的关系如何照亮更广泛的戏剧环境的条件、趋势和压力；阐明文艺戏剧与戏剧界的关系以及1814年伊夫兰去世时德国古典剧目的出现；回顾18世纪末至19世纪初关于戏剧的目的、地位和价值的不断变化的辩论的文化重要性。应用和益处我的研究启发了一位主要作家的作品。为了做到这一点，它以一种在席勒学术中不同寻常的方式将文学史和戏剧史结合在一起，并有助于纠正这一时期德国研究中文学史和戏剧史平行运行的趋势，它们的叙述不相交。它揭示了德国戏剧发展的一个重要阶段。国家戏剧运动和关于剧目中的大众和文学的辩论继续在当代戏剧界引起共鸣。

Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) is arguably Germany's greatest dramatist. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, the theatrical context in which his plays arose and his uneasy relationship with the theatre world have been neglected by critics. My research project analyses Schiller's relationship with the theatre world of his day in conjunction with an evaluation of the career of his great theatre contemporary, August Wilhelm lffland (1759-1814). Born in the same year as Schiller, lffland was the greatest actor of his generation and became the most performed dramatist of the 1780s and 90s. His sentimental and moralizing 'family dramas', a complete contrast to Schiller's heroic verse tragedies, were perfectly tailored to the tastes of contemporary audiences, and his emergence and success reflect the cultural environment of the German theatre as it struggled to gain a foothold as a bourgeois institution. My study traces the way in which Schiller's and lff!and's very different dramatic oeuvres and their impact on the theatrical environment laid the foundation for the classical German repertoire in the nineteenth century.ContextThe period in which Schiller and lffland were active is one in which German theatrical life increased in stability and respectability. The number of standing theatres grew, in part funded by ruling princes, and the acting profession also gained in respectability. But most theatres' viability was still on a knife edge and repertoires were determined by popularity. At the same time, several theatres were called 'National Theatre' and aspired to raise audience taste and develop a representative repertoire. Schiller and lffland spent their early careers at the Mannheim National Theatre and their rivalry there sheds light on the dominant tastes and trends of the time, including the stage reception of Diderot, French 'op8ra-comique', Sturm und Orang (Storm and Stress) and Shakespeare, on the composition of the repertoire. Later, by the time lffland was Director of the Berlin National Theatre (1796-1814), he saw Schiller no longer as a rival but as an ally, whose cultural prestige and association with Goethe at the Weimar Court Theatre could add lustre to his Berlin enterprise and bolster its national pretensions. I argue that this strange symbiosis between the erstwhile rivals offers us a key to understanding the emergence of a classical German repertoire.Aims and objectivesThe development of the theatrical repertoire, the cultural politics of theatre and the practicalities of the stage environment are elements in the emergence of Schiller's dramas that have been largely ignored by critics, whose interest has lain up to now mainly in literary interpretation in the light of literary narratives of the development of drama that exclude almost all the drama that was performed. My aims are:To present Schiller's development as a dramatist in the context of the theatre of his day;To show how lffland's relationship with Schiller illuminates the conditions, trends and pressures of the wider theatrical environment;To illuminate the relationship between literary drama and the theatrical world and the emergence of a classical German repertoire by the time of lffland's death in 1814;To review the cultural importance of the changing debate from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth century about the purpose, status and value of theatre.Applications and benefitsMy study illuminates the work of a major writer. In order to do so it brings together literary and theatre history in a way that is unusual in Schiller scholarship and helps correct the tendency in German Studies of this period for literary and theatre history to run in parallel, their narratives not intersecting. It sheds light on a vital phase in the development of German theatre. The national theatre movement and the debates concerning the popular and the literary in the repertoire continue to have resonance in the contemporary theatre world.