Tragedy in the Age of Oprah by Fantasia Louis;

Author:Fantasia, Louis;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Mary Stuart, Passion’s Martyr

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“I have been much hated, but I have also been much loved.”

—Schiller, Mary Stuart

Schiller’s Mary Stuart is, after Goethe’s Faust, perhaps the finest tragedy written in the German language. Büchner may be a more sensual playwright, Maeterlink more poetic, and Brecht more political, but no one is more essentially tragic than Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller. His play about Mary, Queen of Scots, first performed in Weimar, Germany, in 1800, five years before his death, is a mix of fact and fiction concerning the battle of wills and faiths between Catholic Mary and her Protestant cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

For Schiller, building on the myth of the martyred queen, Mary Stuart was a woman torn between her worldly desires for power and love, and her deep, if wayward, commitment to her faith. In the days before her execution, Schiller’s fictional Mary struggles to come to peace with herself as well as with her enemies, ultimately finding salvation through suffering. Schiller’s Mary Stuart is a play of deep convictions, transcendent poetry, and thrilling political debate. It is also a play rarely performed in America, to our loss.

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