The Literature Book

98

I HAVE COURAGE

ENOUGH TO WALK

THROUGH HELL

BAREFOOT

THE ROBBERS (1781), FRIEDRICH SCHILLER

T

he Sturm und Drang

movement (often translated

as “storm and stress” but

“storm and urge” is more accurate)

was a sudden and brief explosion

of German literature that lasted

about 10 years. Sturm und Drang

consisted of plays and novels

characterized by great energy,

physical and emotional violence,

fierce and anguished lyricism, and

the breaking of taboos (both social

and artistic) in order to express the

essential drama of the human heart.

The movement was a reaction to

the Enlightenment (and particularly

the French Enlightenment) values

of pure reason and rationalism.

Some early Enlightenment thinkers

felt that genius could be attained

through hard work and practice,

and that good literature must

adhere to classical forms. But to

the Sturmer und Dranger (as the

writers of the movement are known)

these ideas were stifling—and

were discarded with abandon.

Sturm und Drang plays ignored

the established formal structures:

they might not have five acts, or

dialogue might not be written in

perfectly formed sentences. And

aside from being expressive, the

language could be shocking, too:

both Friedrich Schiller’s play The

Robbers and Johann Wolfgang

von Goethe’s novel The Sorrows

of Young Werther exist in several

editions, because the original

language had to be toned down.

Youthful exuberance

Schiller’s The Robbers, first

performed in 1782, was the final

flowering of a fading movement.

The plot concerns two aristocratic

brothers with opposing outlooks:

Karl, an honorable idealist; and

Franz, who is cold, materialistic,

and manipulative. Karl takes to the

Bohemian woods to lead a band of

robbers after Franz has turned their

father against him, and stolen his

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Sturm und Drang

BEFORE

1750 Swiss-born philosopher

Jean-Jacques Rousseau writes

Discourse on the Arts and

Sciences, an essay in which he

condemns the Enlightenment

drive toward pure rationalism.

1774 The Sorrows of Young

Werther, a novel by German

writer Johann Wolfgang von

Goethe, is an immediate

success and contains the

elements that will characterize

Sturm und Drang, such as

high-flown expressions of

intense emotion and the futile

struggle of a young hero.

1777 Friedrich Maximilian

von Klinger’s play Sturm und

Drang is first performed, giving

the movement its name.

AFTER

1808 Goethe moves away from

Sturm und Drang with his

dramatic masterpiece Faust.

Never has law formed a good

man: ‘tis liberty that breeds

giants and heroes.

The Robbers

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