RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Schiller’s <em>Wilhelm Tell</em>: Weimar Classicism between Empire and Nation
JF Monatshefte
FD University of Wisconsin Press
SP 519
OP 538
DO 10.3368/m.109.4.519
VO 109
IS 4
A1 Todd Kontje
YR 2017
UL http://mon.uwpress.org/content/109/4/519.abstract
AB In this essay I explore ways in which Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell responds to the paradigm shift in European politics from the Holy Roman Empire to the modern nation-state. Rather than clinging to the imperial politics of the past or embracing unequivocally the new model of the egalitarian nation-state, Schiller explores the advantages and disadvantages of both. Schiller stages a conflict between local Swiss cantons and the Habsburg-controlled Austrian territory. This historical opposition, in turn, makes implicit reference to the recent French efforts to control and centralize the Swiss government, as well as intra-German tensions between smaller principalities and larger territorial states. The larger purpose of the essay is to reconsider the cultural politics of Weimar Classicism in ways that subvert the teleological model of the “Klassik-Legende.”