tion of his
theme partly in popular legend, partly in a domestic motive familiar to
the authors of the _Sturm und Drang_ (the story of Gretchen); the later
additions to the First Part, and the Second Part generally, are the
results of metaphysical and critical studies and meditations belonging
to wholly different spheres of thought and experience. The dramatic
unity of the whole is thus, at the most, external only; and the standard
of judgment to be applied to this wondrous poem is not one of dramatic
criticism. _Egmont_, originally designed as a companion to _Gutz_, was
not completed till many years later; there are few dramas more effective
in parts, but the idea of a historic play is lost in the elaboration of
the most graceful of love episodes. In _Iphigenia_ and _Tasso_, Goethe
exhibited the perfection of form of which his classical period had
enabled him to acquire the mastery; but the sphere of the action of the
former (perfect though it is as a dramatic action), and the nature of
that of the latter, are equally remote from the demands of the popular
stage. Schiller's genius, unlike Goethe's, was naturally and
consistently suited to the claims of the theatre. His juvenile works,
_The Robbers_, _Fiesco_, _Kabale und Liebe_, vibrating under the
influence of an age of social revolution, combined in their prose form
the truthful expression of passion with a considerable admixture of
extravagance. But, with true insight into the demands of his art, and
with unequalled single-mindedness and self-devotion to it, Schiller
gradually emancipated himself from his earlier style; and with his
earliest tragedy in verse, _Don Carlos_, the first period of his
dramatic authorship ends, and the promise of the second announces
itself. The works which belong to this--from the _Wallenstein_ trilogy
to _Tell_--are the acknowledged masterpieces of the German poetic drama,
treating historic themes reconstructed by conscious dramatic
workmanship, and clothing their dialogue in a noble vestment of
rhetorical verse. The plays of Schiller are the living embodiment of the
theory of tragedy elaborated by Hegel, according to which its proper
theme is the divine, or, in other words, the moving ethical, element in
human action. In one of his later plays, _The Bride of Messina_,
Schiller attempted a new use of the chorus of Greek tragedy; but the
endeavour was a splendid error, and destined to exercise no lasting
effect. The reaction against Schil