Wilhelm Tell vor Schiller

Abstract

In Switzerland the figure of Wilhelm Tell represented two traditions, on one hand the hero expressing the proud of the confederates, on the other the incarnation of the oppressed in general. In the play ‚Grisler ou l’Helvétie délivrée’ (1748) by the Bernese author Samuel Henzi, the figure of the despot Grisler is central, and Tell stands in opposition to him. After the overturn of the tyrant, a republican programme is published that founded upon the idea of equality before the law. In the tragedy ‚Guillaume Tell’ (1766) by Antoine-Marin Lemierre, virtue and the sense of liberty are related to the topological motive of the mountains. Here, Tell does not appear any more as a loner but as one of the confederates. At the time of the French Revolution, Tell becomes – at the side of Brutus – an emblematic figure of peoples resistance against tyranny, and Lemierre’s play is widely known. In addition, Schiller, in his ‘Wilhelm Tell’ (1804), also associated the idea of Swiss freedom to the idea of sublime nature as it is seen in travelogues. His play, however, resists the usurpation of the Tell figure by the Jacobins who support a community based on fraternity which should replace the former social model marked by the figure of the super-father.