The evolution of the idea of the “beautiful soul” in Friedrich Schiller’s dramas

Voloshchenko Gleb Eduardovich ORCID: 0009-0005-2054-2530 Specialist of the Department of e-learning and Data Analysis; St. Petersburg State University 194363, Russia, St. Petersburg, Nikolay Rubtsov str., 5 glebvolko@mail.ru

The creative legacy of the great German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) is extremely large and diverse. However, in whatever guise he appeared – as an aesthetician, historian or poet – two ideas invariably run through all of Schiller's work – the triumph of freedom and the search for ways to improve society. In turn, the combination of these two fundamental themes led the playwright to form the concept of the so-called "beautiful soul", a personality whose sensual inclinations do not contradict reason, which finds its personal pleasure in the public good. First voiced in the work "On Grace and Dignity" (1793), this concept was the result of several years of persistent study of philosophy, especially fascination with the ideas of I. Kant. However, even before creating special philosophical and aesthetic works, even at an early stage of his work, Schiller sought to resolve the conflict between inclination and duty, between the will of an individual and the norms of society. Already in his youthful dramas, the writer sets out to comprehend how these opposite moods can get along in one person. He will be able to portray such a harmonious personality only at the end of his creative career.

The purpose of this study is to trace the evolution of the image of a beautiful soul in Friedrich Schiller's dramas: from a rebel who admits his inability to go against the will of the people around him, to truly "folk geniuses" in his last completed masterpieces "The Maid of Orleans" and "William Tell", who do not separate their happiness from the welfare of their fellow citizens. In addition, the specific socio-political significance that Schiller put into his concept of a beautiful soul will be considered.

The evolution of the image of a beautiful soul will be traced by the example of six dramas by Schiller, considered in pairs as duplicating each other. These are "riot dramas" "Robbers" and "The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa"; "political dramas" "Don Carlos, Infante of Spain" and "Mary Stuart"; as well as "folk dramas" "The Maid of Orleans" and "William Tell". However, before proceeding to the analysis of these works, it is worth briefly describing Schiller's ideas about the beautiful soul.

Schiller's concept of a beautiful soul was formed in the early 1790s. The Great French Revolution gave the writer rich food for thought about the transformation of human society on a more just basis. However, having initially accepted the revolution with enthusiasm, the poet soon became disillusioned with its methods. Schiller saw the reason that the overthrow of the autocracy turned into a bloody Jacobin terror in the unpreparedness of mankind to renounce violence. In his "Letters on the aesthetic education of man", the poet develops the idea of the existence of two types of society: the natural state of need, in which everything is conditioned by the influence of natural affects on passive people, and the moral state of reason. In the first society, a person, not understanding all the laws of the surrounding world, is guided by sensations alone, and therefore acts involuntarily, under the pressure of various forces that are heteronomous in relation to him. In such a society, a person is not free, he understands only the language of necessity and brute force. In a moral state, a person, having learned the laws on which the universe is based, acts solely for reasons of his mind, because now he understands perfectly well what he, as a member of a certain society, needs. A moral state is a state of ideal freedom, i.e. conscious necessity. The aim of the revolutionaries, according to Schiller, was to overthrow the natural state of force in order to create a moral state of freedom and reason. However, "an unreceptive generation met an auspicious moment" ^{[1, p. 261]} – humanity is not yet ready for such transformations. A person of the natural state is not able to perceive freedom, i.e. to define himself from the inside – he perceives only an external, heteronomous definition for him from nature and the state. The moral state, on the other hand, requires a person who has just emerged from a natural state to guide the mind, which such a person has not yet had the opportunity to learn, and renounce the ever-changing sensuality. Thus, the theoretical moral state risks destroying a real person who does not have the skills to exist in new conditions. Such a moral state is, in principle, impossible to implement, since man is generally a living being, which means that he is necessarily influenced by the affects of nature. Thus, Schiller comes to the idea of the need to create a fundamentally new, third state of human nature, in which a natural person would be removed from the arbitrariness of external forces, and a moral person from absolute isolation from these forces. "It would be necessary to remove the first [character] somewhat from matter, and bring the second somewhat closer to it in order to create a character of the third kind" ^{[1, p. 257]}.

This new state should be an aesthetic state in which all the diversity of human nature is fully revealed. In the natural state, a person is only a toy of the forces of nature, in the moral state, a real person is a slave to duty. In any of these extreme states, a person will be unfree in one way or another, because his existence will be determined by alien influences. The aesthetic state, which occupies a middle position between the two extremes, is a state of freedom of the spirit, which "experiences neither physical nor moral motivation, but is active in both ways" ^{[1, pp. 318-319]}. In an aesthetic state, a person is perceived solely as an indivisible whole, not being an object for individual alien forces in relation to him. Aesthetically, neither feeling nor reason exert pressure on each other, on the contrary, they are so closely intertwined that there are no boundaries at all between them. Here, form becomes only a natural extension of matter, and man exists by virtue of his inner self-determination.

Discussing the ways of bringing a person into an aesthetic state, Schiller proceeds from the position that the existence of man himself is based on the interaction of two opposite motives: a sensual urge and a formal urge. The first is inherent in matter, which makes it susceptible to the affects of nature, which, constantly acting on it, change its state. At the same time, for the formal impulse inherent in the mind, the opposite is natural, i.e., the desire for stability, the absence of any changes in matter. The predominance of any of the motives over each other is harmful: if a changeable sensual urge prevails, then a human personality cannot be formed, and a person remains at the level of an animal, constantly guided in life only by instincts flashing in his consciousness, provoked by the surrounding world. In exactly the same way, the formal impulse that dominates sensuality does not allow a person to freely react to the changes in nature taking place around him. Thus, for the harmonious development of a person, it is necessary to evoke in him a third impulse, "which will be opposite to each of the two, considered separately, precisely because both act in him" ^{[1, p. 296]}. This urge should contribute to the transition of a person into an aesthetic state by arousing in a person a completely sensual desire to act in the interests of reason, thus making service to the common good an innate inclination of the individual. Schiller calls this new urge the urge to play, because it freely combines the necessity with which the laws of nature affect matter, and the freedom of the mind from this necessity. The urge to play, therefore, "will compel the spirit both physically and morally; it will therefore give man freedom both physically and morally" ^{[1, p. 297]} – precisely because it will destroy man's dependence on the arbitrary influence of nature and reason.

However, how is it possible to bring the two extreme urges, sensual and formal, together to such an extent that they merge into a single whole and dissolve into the urge to play? Schiller gives the following answer. He proceeds from the fact that the object of a sensual impulse is life itself, eternally changeable and never frozen in one state, and the object of a formal impulse is an image, the result of mental activity, not limited by objective reality. Consequently, the fusion of these two motives will lead to the fusion of their objects, which will give a living image, i.e. beauty itself. Beauty, the beautiful, for Schiller is a free combination of matter and form in such a way that neither of these components is under pressure from the other. As an example of the inadmissibility of mutual violence of matter and form over each other in aesthetic terms, the writer in his article "Callium, or On Beauty" gives descriptions of a heavy horse and a tree whose crown is shorn in the shape of a ball. Both cases are a distortion of natural harmony. The "specialization" of the crowbar affected its appearance and the unnaturalness of its movements: "its movements no longer follow from the peculiarities of its nature" ^{[1, p. 93]}. In turn, the spherical crown of a tree cannot be called a beautiful sight, because it obviously commits violence against the nature of the tree: "... we like it when the tree, in its inner freedom, destroys the technique imposed on it," which "is something alien wherever it does not arise from the thing itself" ^{[1, p. 95]}. Here it is important to point out the close connection between the poet's aesthetic and ethical views proper. Even in such abstract arguments, Schiller appears as a champion of the liberation of man not only from dogmas and laws, but also from social injustice and the phenomenon of narrow specialization, which turns a person into a "fragment" who is "unable to develop the harmony of his being, and <...> he becomes only an imprint of his occupation, his profession" ^{[1, pp. 265-266]}.

So, life itself should become a process of play, i.e. the free activity of human creative forces. The game is expedient without a purpose: it is not a utilitarian activity aimed at satisfying material interests. But this is not an activity of the mind detached from reality, because it is aimed at embodiment in reality. The product of this embodied game, the phenomenon of beauty in reality, is appearance – ennobled matter, life, embodying an image that, due to the peculiarities of matter itself, descended to it from the spheres of reason not limited by the law of necessity. Visibility is the result of the inevitable mutual concessions that the image (theory) and life (reality) make in order to be able to unite into a single whole. Life itself cannot rise to an image, since it is limited by the laws of necessity, which constitute its essence. A theory can become a reality only if, by making an amendment to the natural laws of necessity, it can limit its absolute independence.

Schiller's idea of beauty as an appearance generated by art or play, i.e. a free combination of matter and form without any external purpose, is important for understanding the ways in which this poet and philosopher intended to realize his humanistic ideals. After all, the concept of visibility, in essence, can be applied to that harmonious person who will be able to refine his nature, on the one hand, limiting the impact on his sensual nature from nature, and on the other, making the moral law more tolerant of his feelings. If feelings and instincts take control of the mind, then there is no beauty in this, because here the form is crushed by matter. There is no beauty in the pressure of reason (form) over feeling, because reason restricts the free activity of nature, in the material realm of which only activity is possible. Thus, the goal of a person is to achieve a state in which "sensual impulses are harmoniously combined with the laws of reason, and a person is in harmony with himself," exactly such a "state of mind <...>, where reason and sensuality – duty and attraction – are in harmony, will be a condition for the beauty of the game" ^{[1, pp. 142-144]}. In this new state, man will have to return from the ideal theoretical constructions of reason back to the simplicity of nature, while not allowing the latter to commit violence against himself. This is a "healthy and beautiful nature" that "does not need any morality, any natural law, or any political metaphysics" ^{[2, pp. 420-421]}. In such a man, whom Schiller calls a beautiful soul, a moral worldview has become his nature.

As an illustration of such a beautiful soul, Schiller cites in the same article "Callius, or On Beauty" one story, which briefly consists in the fact that one person got into trouble, and several passers-by tried to help him. However, two of them wanted to help only for a certain reward or out of their own vanity (here people are guided in their, in general, moral actions only by material interest - there is nothing beautiful about this). One passerby wanted to help gratuitously, but his own plight was met only by oppression from the demands of morality and duty (here nature and its free inclination resist the dictates of duty, and there is nothing beautiful in a highly moral, but forced, with a grimace of doubt on his face, intention to help). And only the last passerby offered his help himself, because the sight of someone else's trouble caused him regret, and the feeling itself pushed him to commit this wonderful act.

Such a person cannot act otherwise than morally, because this is exactly what his natural inclinations consist of. He cannot be given credit for any feat, because "there is no merit in satisfying the inclination" ^{[1, p. 149]}. In such a character, the laws of reason and morality should become a natural extension of sensual nature, its manifestation in human activity. Therefore, even the most difficult dictates of duty are easily fulfilled by a beautiful soul, because this duty does not contradict its inclinations, and the satisfaction of inclinations is natural for a living being. Here, the form is only a natural result of the development of nature itself, which has arbitrarily defined its limits. A person in an aesthetic state is neither an object of affect, nor a slave to duty and morality that violate his sensuality – a beautiful soul does not share inclination and duty at all. They are destroyed by the urge to play. The life of an aesthetic person is a game, a free combination of his various powers, which only has the appearance of some kind of expediency. In essence, this life is impractical, because it is not an object of external influences that define it, on the contrary, it defines and limits itself, manifesting its freedom in this act. This life for the sake of life itself is the goal.

In addition to these rather abstract ideas about a harmonious person, it is necessary to see a specific socio-political orientation in Schiller's reasoning. Thus, in his "Letters on the aesthetic education of man", the poet stigmatizes the phenomenon of specialization, which splits society into many disparate workshops, which, locked in their narrow worlds, lose sight of the overall picture of the universe. Some people, immersed in hard physical labor and poverty, harden their souls, turn into pure matter, reacting only to external stimuli, while becoming deaf to lofty thoughts. Others, on the contrary, carried away by pure ideas and images, break away from reality and become immune to ordinary human feelings, especially to a sense of brotherhood with real people. Schiller actively opposes such a "class" division of society. Thus, in his article "The Museum of Antiquities in Mannheim" (1785), the poet describes "the figure of a hungry man with sunken eyes begging for alms" and "the curses of thousands of people" who "like a voracious pile of worms, swarm in the midst of this high-flown decomposition" ^{[1, p. 542]}. And against the background there are magnificent achievements of ancient art collected by the Bavarian elector. However, because of their squalor, the common people cannot enjoy this beauty, and the powerful of this world are not confused by the neighborhood of a miserable beggar with the luxury of palaces. In another work, "On the poems of Burger" (1791), Schiller, arguing about the concept of a folk poet, comes to the conclusion that "in our time, a folk poet in the sense in which Homer was for his century or a troubadour for his" ^{[1, p. 611]}, it is pointless to look for, because There are no people. There are only disparate groups of people who are engaged in purely personal matters and do not show interest in other people's problems. In turn, the system of aesthetic education, having chosen art as its means, should lead humanity to unity and, if not destroy, then at least smooth out such an obvious division of classes. At the same time, each person will become, on the one hand, so exalted, and on the other – so mundane that he will take part in the life of society with interest and pleasure, without thinking about it as something inaccessible or low for himself. Schiller's ideal was the Athenian Republic of Solon, in which "even the most ordinary Athenian was familiar with public affairs" ^{[3, p. 443]}. In fact, this is a powerless society in which the state as a coercive apparatus has died out: citizens do not feel the oppression of the "form" (laws), but, based on their own motivation, participate jointly in the life of the collective.

The above description of Schiller's ethical, aesthetic and social ideals, which had developed by the early 1790s, was necessary because it was during this period that the playwright's creative intuition and search received form and theoretical justification. However, the poet's thought never stopped, and throughout the 1780s and later, from the mid-1790s, his views underwent a significant evolution. We will now begin to describe this evolution and its reflection in the writer's artistic work.

Starting a conversation about Schiller's first two full–fledged plays – "The Robbers" (1781) and "The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa" (1783) - it is impossible not to mention also such a work of the young playwright as "The experience of exploring the question of the connection between the animal and spiritual nature of man" (1780). In this dissertation, written while studying at the Faculty of Medicine of the Karl-Eugen Academy, Schiller, one of the first in Modern European science ^{[4, p. 475]}, gave a positive answer to the question of the relationship between body and spirit, feeling and mind. Based on direct medical observations, the young poet came to the conclusion that the deterioration and improvement of physical condition has an appropriate effect on the mental and emotional state of a person. The same can be said about the opposite: the rise and fall of mental strength, joy and sorrow either fill the body with new strength or empty it. Moreover, unsatisfied material needs can so blind the mind that it, in turn, will incline a person even to crime in order to satisfy these needs: "The Creator took care so vigilantly to preserve the mechanism" ^{[5, p. 481]}. There is logic in this: after all, the mind, in order to control the body more correctly, must be aware "of the bad or good condition of its organs" ^{[5, p. 479]}. Man, Schiller sums up, "is not a soul and not a body, man is the closest combination of these two substances," and "animal nature is completely mixed with spiritual and <...> this mixing is perfection" ^{[5, pp. 488-490]}.

In these arguments, the beginnings of those conclusions that the poet will draw years later are already visible. In the "Research Experience ..." there are also thoughts that excessive exertion of bodily or mental forces negatively affects each other. Especially a lot of the poet's complaints fall to the share of excessive sensitivity, which, under the influence of affects, disrupts the measured existence of the organism. Whether under the influence of the still not completely disappeared childish religiosity ^{[6, p. 25],[7, p. 50]}, whether under the influence of strict upbringing ^{[6, p. 18-19]} or, perhaps gradually, the learned rules of the despotic leadership of the Karl-Eugen Academy ^{[8, p. 37-38]}, but in this work Schiller it also resolves the conflict between feeling and reason in favor of the latter. Recognizing the rights of matter to satisfy its needs and fully reveal its abilities, the poet points out the danger of violent manifestations of feelings and the development of the individual in general, which undermines the well-being of the whole organism ^{[5, p. 493]}. It is not difficult to assume that in the era of "storm and onslaught", the ideal of which was "a rebel hero who is cramped within the framework of existing orders", who challenged "the laws, the universe, God himself" ^[9], this physiological observation acquired social significance.

In fact, it is precisely about the excessively played out passions and the need to pacify them for the sake of maintaining the common good that Schiller's first two youthful dramas, the "dramas of rebellion" "Robbers" and "Fiesco", narrate. Interestingly, both plays are referenced in his "Research Experience ..." So, the dialogue between Franz Moore and Daniel the butler from the first scene of the fifth act of "Robbers" is presented in "Research Experience ..." as an excerpt from an English play fictional by Schiller, illustrating the effect of negative emotions on the body. And the "voluptuous Fiesco", the owner of the "evil soul <...> in a sick body" ^{[5, p. 489]}, is presented as an example of the negative impact of sensual vices on a person's mindset. The mention of these plays, conceived simultaneously with the writing of this psycho-physiological study, is another indication that Schiller's artistic work is inseparable from his philosophical quest.

Considering "Robbers" in exactly this way, we can say that this work is the tragedy of one "victim of immoderate feeling" ^{[1, p. 537]}, as the author himself defined its central theme. This victim is Karl Moore, a young nobleman who, due to the machinations of his younger brother Franz, became the chieftain of the robbers. Charles appears as a noble young man who dreams of resurrecting the age of the "great men of antiquity", creating a republic "next to which both Rome and Sparta will seem like monasteries" ^{[10, pp. 381-382]}. Karl's weakness is his short temper, excessive susceptibility to affects. He is a hero in the spirit of the dramas "Storm and Onslaught", an individualist who puts his feelings above all else, contrasting himself with society and the whole world. It is under the influence of a rattling mixture of various affects: a romantic craving for heroics, a thirst for justice and resentment of a son unfairly estranged from his family by his father – Karl, whose mind is completely blinded, decides to declare war on the whole world. However, despite the nobility and justice of the hero's claims, it is precisely because he is guided only by his feelings, ignoring the will of the people around him, that Karl himself becomes a tyrant. His unbridled sensuality unwittingly leads him to assert himself by harassing others.

It is important to note that Schiller does not condemn Karl's rebellion itself. On the contrary, this character is presented from the very beginning as an innocent victim of other people's intrigues, and therefore his personal desire to restore justice, albeit with the help of a gang of robbers, seems natural. On the other hand, the very social order against which Karl is also rebelling is depicted as deeply flawed. Law and order in "Robbers" appear in the person of a cowardly father, who even with an army of dragoons behind his back does not feel safe next to Karl; victims of Karl – a minister, adviser and priest, who achieved power by cunning and intrigues; and, finally, Karl's brother, the sovereign Count Francis von Moore, tyrannizing over his own subjects. The depiction of these characters makes it clear that the young Schiller is far from placing hopes for the establishment of justice on the formal law. The young playwright writes bluntly that society and the state need correction, and if the powerful of this world do not want to change for the better, then the remedy against their oppression will be an uprising: this is indicated by two famous epigraphs to "Robbers", in which the author warns tyrants of imminent retribution. Finally, Schiller himself spoke about his first drama: "We want to make a book that the knacker will have to burn to the ground" ^{[11, p. 49]}, pointing to its revolutionary orientation.

So, social injustice, the oppression of laws and the state leads to an uprising of the individual, the excessive pressure of form leads to an uprising of matter. However, Karl's mistake lies precisely in the narrowness of his thinking, limited by the influence of feelings. In his attempt to restore justice, the hero thinks of himself as the arbiter of other people's destinies, the judge of other people's vices – he equates his will with the will of the whole world, and therefore he himself becomes an oppressor. Finally, Carl realizes that his rebellion, an explosion of sensuality, is detrimental to the common good, disrupts the normal course of things. In rather naive terms, Schiller depicts how the hero realizes himself to be an outcast: "My innocence! Oh my innocence! <...> I am the only one rejected, the only one expelled from the midst of the righteous!" ^{[10, p. 440]}. In accordance with his views set out in the "Research Experience ...", the author, noting the validity of Karl's rebellion, speaks of his failure precisely because of his selfishness, inconsistency with the world plan. As a result, the sensual urge capitulates to the formal urge, the individual has to submit to the demands of society. Carl betrays himself to the authorities. The tragedy of Karl is precisely that his "genius", too violent manifestation of his powers undermines the foundations of the society that surrounds him, so he "has to" be stopped. The author by no means justifies the modern German semi-feudal society of the second half of the XVIII century, the form in which the freedom-loving sentiments of the new generation are maturing, but bitterly states that as long as these outdated laws and conventions of society exist, the individual will be sacrificed to the state.

However, the very finale of "Robbers" indicates that the image of Karl contains a hint of a future beautiful soul. The hero does not surrender to the authorities directly, but intends to first open up to a poor day laborer who will receive a generous reward for the capture of the legendary chieftain. This act can be interpreted as an indication that Karl (and with him the author himself) finds a genuine way to correct society: not through rebellion, forcibly changing the system, but through mutual assistance and the desire to bring happiness to others. Here, too, one can see Schiller's distrust of the state: the hero betrays himself to the court not of the dry letter of the law, but of the common people, who, guided by their own sense of justice, will decide the fate of the robber.

The central image of the maverick rebel, the idea of capitulating to the "revolt of sensuality" before law and public order, no matter how vicious they may be, is actually repeated in Schiller's next drama, The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa. The title character is actually Count Fiesco, who is plotting to overthrow the old despot, the Doge of Genoa Andrea Doria, and his nephew, the depraved Gianettino. Fiesco, by the general admission of all the characters in the play, is an Epicurean, he is used to spending his life in entertainment and indulging his pleasures. He is distinguished by a sharp mind, cunning and cunning: debauchery and gaiety are just a mask for him, but secretly he does everything necessary to successfully carry out a coup d'etat: "Yes, before you heard the chains clanking from afar, Fiesco had already smashed them! <...> Here are the soldiers of Parma!.. Here is the gold of France! Here are the four galleys of the Pope!" ^{[10, p. 550]}.

However, Fiesco's intelligence and determination, his participation in the revolution against tyrants, do not negate the fact that he seeks in this political struggle only to satisfy his own ambitions. His epicureanism, the race for sensual pleasures, force him to seek more refined pleasures – he now needs to satisfy his own vanity. Like Karl Moore, Fiesco is too sensual, and therefore selfish, and the salvation of the Genoese republic as such does not interest him. He strives only for an external effect, he wants to first impress his fellow citizens, who recognized him as the unconditional leader of the uprising, with ostentatious principles and indifference to the honors and laurels of the winner. Later, he ceases to hide from himself, recognizing that it gives him pleasure to manage people, to realize that the fate of society depends on his private will. An extraordinary man, naturally gifted with eloquence, charm and, most importantly, energy and organizational skills, Fiesco wastes his talents on satisfying his passions, his will serves only him, and therefore makes the whole conspiracy meaningless.

Just as Fiesco, overcome by his sensuality, lost in his selfishness an idea of the general purpose of the uprising, so most conspirators join the conspiracy only in the hope of satisfying their own ambitions. The skinny sensualist Calcagno and the squandered Sacco hope to profit from the revolutionary mess, the offended nobles hope to restore their rights. They are forced to turn against Doria only by their obsession with their selfish motives. However, Schiller, again, does not condemn the rebellion itself, because both Dorias are also not a model of nobility: one is an old man who is used to controlling with an iron hand and stifling any disagreement, the other is a dissolute youth who is used only to satisfying his immoderate sensuality.

Moreover, the uprising does not seem to be something criminal, because a truly noble person, Verrina, joins it. This character, perhaps, can be defined as a prototype of Schiller's "beautiful soul": in him, the heart and mind, inclinations and the concept of duty have an equal voice. He is guided by the lofty Republican ideal, but it is not this abstraction, not empty reverie that makes him start acting. The main motive for the character becomes a sensual urge: Bertha, Verrina's daughter, is raped by Gianettino. The righteous anger of the old man pushes him to take part in a coup, which he had only thought of before. Thus, the actions of this hero were the result of a sensual, completely selfish impulse and a formal impulse that merged into a single impulse, forcing him to think not only about his own good, but about the good of the whole of Genoa.

However, as in The Robbers, Schiller's youthful formalism resolves the conflict of the drama in favor of restored order. Verrina, who had previously suspected Fiesco of "becoming the most formidable tyrant of Genoa" ^{[10, p. 554]}, sees his comrade dressed in royal purple. The old Republican realizes that Fiesco was only pursuing his own interests, he does not care about the highest ideals. Therefore, the power of Doria will give way to the power of Fiesco, and nothing will change – violence and arbitrariness will also rule the world. Verrina understands that humanity has not yet grown up to make the transition from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom, it cannot yet merge its selfish motives with the idea of the public good. Therefore, Verrina kills Fiesco and goes to surrender to the tyrant Doria. Fiesco's stormy "genius" is sacrificed to public order. So Schiller finally breaks with Sturmer's dreams of a stormy genius who can destroy the old vicious world and establish something new in its place.

However, Schiller's gradual disillusionment with revolutionary ideals did not mean his abandonment of hope for the reconstruction of society: the reality of the "German squalor" of the second half of the XVIII century undermined the poet's confidence in the reliability of violent methods of this reconstruction, but did not dissuade him from the need for any transformations ^{[12, p. 96]}. In his subsequent works, he is still looking for ways for humanity to gain freedom.

Two other Schiller tragedies, in which the conflict between sensual and formal motivation, selfishness and duty is most vividly represented, are the "political dramas" Don Carlos, Infante of Spain (1787) and "Mary Stuart" (1800). The playwright, who went beyond the Karl-Eugen Academy, within the walls of which "Robbers" and "Fiesco" were conceived, saw a new world, expanded his horizons, better understood the laws of history and the way of thinking of people in power. This allowed him to create in his new works deeper and more realistic images of the rulers – King Philip II and Elizabeth I. Both plays are based on the collision of a freedom–loving personality, driven by his passions, living only by sensual impulses (Carlos and Maria), and the state, personified by people whose human nature has been sacrificed to a great goal (Philip with the Grand Inquisitor and Elizabeth with Burleigh). On the one hand, there is a free, changeable feeling, on the other hand, an overwhelming form striving for stability and inviolability.

Carlos, "oppressed, deprived of energy, <...> rushing between terrifying extremes" ^{[1, 560]}, is all matter. Lonely, unable to satisfy any of his desires, any of his passions (be it love for his father, thirst for friendship, or attraction to his own stepmother, once promised to him as a wife), the prince is locked in his sensual suffering, and therefore unable to give his existence a purpose. This unbridled sensuality is selfish, and Carlos, who once dreamed with his childhood friend the Marquis de Posa of the kingdom of freedom, now does not remember his former hobbies, the highest values and the good of humanity.

His opposite is King Philip. Natural human feelings are suppressed here by the "unnatural oppression of his dignity" ^{[1, p. 568]}, the king, "focused on one plan, <...> directing all his forces and means to a single goal" ^{[13, p. 33]}, he eclipses his father and husband. In the image of Philip, the author presents a deeper understanding of human nature. Unsatisfied desires and a riot of passions lead a person to promiscuity and the desire to assert himself at the expense of others. But the personality is also oppressed by the constant subordination of its healthy sensuality to ideal concepts, such as higher duty, state interests, faith and other inventions of the human mind, which turn it, using the apt definition of the philosopher M. Stirner, into an obsessive with unreal entities, abstractions, ghosts ^{[14, pp. 38-44]}. The pacification of matter in favor of form leads to the fact that sometimes Philip's sensuality breaks out in an ugly form: either he, already an old man, marries his son's bride for state reasons, or he seeks to possess the young princess Eboli.

However, the true apotheosis of this unnatural formalism, the absolute subordination of living matter to the idea that Philip can come to is the image of the Grand Inquisitor. Philip's dialogue with him is a triumph of a deadening idea, eternal peace. For the sake of implementing the unshakable principles on which public administration is based, the Inquisitor is ready to sanctify sonicide, i.e. the literal destruction of the future, which is possible only with the incessant change of matter in time. For the sake of establishing this higher order, for the sake of the imaginary salvation of the family, the inquisitor is ready to sacrifice individuals, "put a hundred thousand weak in spirit to the stake," because "in the name of eternal justice / the Son of God was crucified" ^{[15, pp. 265-267]}. It is characteristic that the Grand Inquisitor is blind: he is fenced off from the sensual world, locked in a world of abstractions, those very ghosts of state and religious ideology, and therefore is unable to sympathize with living people whom he cannot even see.

Carlos and Philippe, son and father, personified extremes, both strive to come to a certain middle state in which their contradictions would be destroyed. The first, all matter and sensuality, is looking for a form, some idea that would give direction to his irrepressible passions. Philip, who still retained the remnants of natural desires, "longed for man," that is, he hopes to shake at least a little the form that increasingly embraces him. As a result, the prince and the king agree in their attraction to one person – the Marquis de Posa. This character is another attempt by Schiller to portray a beautiful soul, the very harmonious character in which feelings and reason converge in their goal; a character in which form and matter do not rape or limit each other's influence. At first glance, the Pose is really the embodiment of a beautiful soul. He is a loyal friend of Carlos, who wants to cheer up the fallen prince, but he is also devoted to the lofty goal of liberating the people of the Netherlands. At the same time, this idea in him is not the result of abstract reflections and speculation, on the contrary, it originated from the personal experience of the marquis, as a result of his observations of real people, knowledge of their sorrows and joys. "Man appears to him in many varieties <…>. This is how the idea of man in general gradually arises in him" ^{[1, p. 561]}. Marquis moves from the private to the general, from sensual sympathy for specific people to awareness of himself as a citizen of the world, to the idea of happiness for all mankind. The combination of a living feeling, mobile matter with an idea, with a certain form, which has become a natural extension of his instincts, the Pose now strives for active activity.

However, the marquis, for all his positive qualities, is not an example of a truly beautiful soul, because he still has too much attraction to form, as Schiller himself points out in his "Letters about Don Carlos". In a certain sense, the marquis, like the king and the Grand Inquisitor, becomes obsessed himself, asserting "a new absolute, a new ideal – freedom", for which "appropriate"propaganda is conducted" ^{[14, p. 230]}. The pose is ready to sacrifice the interests of his friend, Carlos, to his great goal, the prince's sadness worries the marquis exactly in so far as it hinders the implementation of his revolutionary plans. Finally, the Pose dares to open up to King Philip, naively believing that his feelings have not yet completely hardened. This hero is perhaps the last in Schiller's work, who still showed hope that material motives could be subordinated to form, and representatives of the higher order would be merciful enough not to oppress freedom. However, the playwright notes that this is only a "crazy idea" ^{[1, p. 571]}. This allows us to assert that Schiller himself got rid of his own youthful thoughts by the end of the 1780s, that personality must necessarily be sacrificed to the interests of society. Gradually, the writer comes to understand new ways of transforming society, which he does not associate either with the ideals of the "genius" Sturmers or with faith in transformations "from above".

Therefore, in "Mary Stuart", duplicating the central conflict of "Don Carlos", there is no one who could replace the Pose. The poet denies the state the opportunity to produce a personality capable of defending the freedom and interests of ordinary, specific people, without sacrificing the good of society. Mary Stuart, like Carlos, is formless matter, aimless sensuality, unable to find satisfaction because it constantly changes its object. Mary's numerous lovers and favorites, at whose feet she throws her kingdom and for whom she squanders the treasury, replace each other, but the Scottish queen does not find peace. The only thing Maria can do to attract readers and viewers to her side is her humanity: she lives a full, even too full life, immoderately indulging in her passions. Schiller himself noted that, despite the public's sympathy for this heroine, Maria should not arouse tender feelings and pity ^{[8, p. 342]}: her fate worries the author only because it is the fate of an oppressed, deprived of freedom of expression of feeling, albeit aimless.

Queen Elizabeth, in turn, embodies the idea of the state, the idea of the highest duty, which suppresses all normal human feelings in her. As Philip is backed by the inquisitor, so Elizabeth is backed by Baron Burleigh, the epitome of despotism, inertia, the final triumph of form. It is he who constantly reminds Elizabeth: "The welfare of the people is the highest duty!/ <...> I'm saving England – it's more!" ^{[15, p. 774]}. However, this concern for the welfare of the people is only an abstract idea, Burley serves the dry letter of the law, which does not take into account the will and feelings of the individual. Elizabeth, on the other hand, is under the constant yoke of her dignity: her femininity cannot be fully revealed, she must put her love on the altar of state interests; the same is with her sisterly and simply human feelings for Mary, whom she, as queen, has no right to pity. As a result, her omnipotence turns into "slavish service to the people", "shameful servitude" ^{[15, p. 775]}. In this undisguised pity even for the tyrant, who becomes a tragic figure ^{[8, p. 342]}, Schiller's true humanism is manifested, who managed to see the true corrupting essence of power, which turns a person into a slave to the idea and the law.

For Mary and Elizabeth, these two opposites, there is no Marquis Pose, there is no middle ground in which they could come together. In the sphere of politics, the world of abstract, deadened ideas, divorced from the vital interests and problems of real people, a beautiful soul, free in its manifestations, cannot be born. At the end of his life and creative career, Schiller finally realizes that such a harmonious person can only be born among ordinary people, being an integral part of his era and his people. A truly beautiful soul can be found in the poet's "folk dramas", "The Maid of Orleans" (1801) and "William Tell" (1804). By their own initiative, and not by the dictates of duty or law, the main characters of these plays, Joan of Arc and William Tell, benefit their people.

It is interesting to note that John is depicted as a beautiful soul in the making. Instinctively feeling the need to serve the high, this young shepherdess still cannot fully understand her feelings, and she perceives her own inner urge as a voice from above. Her own dreams still seem to be in conflict with the broad field in which she seeks to prove herself:

"Be afraid of hopes, do not know earthly love:

You don't have to light wedding candles.;

You will not be the soul of your family;

Do not caress a blooming baby..." ^{[16, p. 23]}

Imagining that the inner voice that calls her to great things is the voice of God, she becomes obsessed with the idea of calling, this ghost, and imposes unnecessary restrictions on her sensuality. From this dichotomy of feeling and duty comes Joanna's lack of confidence in her abilities in the fourth act of the play. The contradiction she herself invented between her own will and the will of the people leads to the fact that John's love for the English military commander Lionel ignites. She finally gets rid of this split only at the sight of the French losing. Joanna remains sensitive to external affects: the bitterness of realizing the defeat of her fellow citizens, the awareness of her solidarity with them and the desire to help do the impossible, and the captive Joanna, breaking her chains, saves the French army almost alone. Freely, of her own free will, and not at the call of a higher duty, she directed all her efforts to the benefit of her people and found supreme happiness in that.

In turn, William Tell is an already formed beautiful soul. To help other people out of trouble, to come to the rescue, to act on the first impulse, without hesitation – this is his nature. In a thunderstorm, he transports Baumgarten, who killed the rapist Focht, across a stormy lake, because he cannot do otherwise, and not because duty dictates so. Tell's sensuality finds satisfaction in serving others, his personal pleasure in making others enjoy life. However, Tell is not a simple-minded good man, he jealously protects his rights and is not afraid to raise his hand against someone who threatens him and his loved ones. And while the rest of the Swiss, led by Furst, Stauffacher and Melchthal, are only talking about the upcoming uprising against the foreign government, Tell, not being a conspirator, personally carries out what the rest would not have decided for a long time. It is not abstract thoughts that push Tell to kill the petty tyrant focht Gesler, but a completely material motive – a threat to his own son's life. So Tell rises to the realization that the world needs to be rid of people like Gesler, who can only force the will of other people. Tell becomes an expression of the opinion of his people and his era, he is a man inextricably linked with his society. He is not the stormy genius Carl Moore or Fiesco, not a legislator or a politician. Tell is the very aesthetic man that Schiller has been looking for for so long. This character is the embodiment of life in the broadest sense of the word: his existence is not subordinated to any high purpose, he is not blinded by his passions, but his personal inclinations and abilities are most vividly revealed in the service of the common whole.

This is the main difference between Tell and another tyrannicide appearing in this play – Johann Parricida, the Swabian duke who killed his own uncle, King Albrecht I of Germany. Parricida, offended by the fact that he was deprived of his possessions, decides to restore justice in his own way. In Marxist literary criticism, the opinion has been established that the whole scene with Parricide is nothing more than an "artificially fastened suspension" ^{[12, p. 373]}, which "completely unnecessarily justifies Tell's actions once again" ^{[11, p. 287]}, mitigating his "terrorist act" ^{[17, p. 72]}. Without disputing the assumption that the formal reason for the introduction of the Parricide motif into the play could indeed be the dissatisfaction of the German aristocracy with such an obvious republicanism of Schiller, it is worth pointing out a deeper and more organic connection of this image with the entire work of the playwright of previous years. What distinguishes Parricide from Tell is that he seeks in the murder of his abuser to satisfy only his own narrow-minded desires. He does not rise to altruism, he, like Fiesco, is driven by selfishness and self-love. Hoping for understanding, he comes to Tell and reveals himself to him: "You also took revenge on the enemy" ^{[16, p. 420]}. Tell explains the difference between them:

"Did you save your son's head?

Have you stood up for the sanctity of the hearth? And loved ones

Did you protect us from the terrible end?" ^{[16, p. 420]}

The main character does not betray Parricide, but releases him and advises him to flee to Rome. Tell declares this murderer an outcast, cut off from society in his selfishness, and therefore already punished. How can you not remember the finale of "Robbers" in this scene, when Carl Moore decides to open up to a simple day laborer in the same way, putting himself in the hands of the people? The people in the person of Tell do not trust the authorities and do not betray the criminal to them, but independently carry out their simple court, expelling him from their circle. As in the ode To Joy (1785), it is not an abstract law that punishes the villain, but the very fact that he preferred his selfishness to universal contentment:

"Who despised in the earthly vale

The warmth of the bonds of the soul,

He is in tears, of his own free will,

Let him leave our union!" ^{[10, p. 149]}

With his voluntarism, Tell differs from the Republican Verrina, who recognized the need to obey the order to the detriment of his own desires. Neither Tell nor the other Swiss are going to tolerate violence from the form (the state, the emperor) anymore, they are ready to resist it:

"Well, let him lead his troops!

We have defeated the enemy inside the country –

And we will be able to reflect the external one" ^{[16, p. 408]}.

Thus, Schiller concludes his play by depicting not only a free, aesthetically beautiful soul, but also a truly free society.: his Swiss now do not need guidance from the state, the personality of each of them now merges with the whole people, and only in the good of the whole seeks satisfaction of their private interests. However, the triumph of this democracy becomes possible partly due to the act of Parricida: by killing the king, he unknowingly diverted a great danger from the Swiss. This paradox reveals Schiller's attitude to the human will and the relativity of everyday ideas about good and evil: and an egoistic act may one day serve as the basis for the common good.

So, we traced the evolution of the image of a beautiful soul in Schiller's dramatic works and found that throughout his creative activity he tried to find a harmonious personality who could reconcile reason and feelings, direct private aspirations to the happiness of society. At the beginning of his work, the poet, for one reason or another, still believed that the violent manifestation of the abilities and sensuality of an individual harms social organization. Therefore, as Schiller admitted with obvious regret, law and order will have to oppress the individual, no matter what rights to revolt he may have. However, having better understood the nature of power and the state, the poet came to the conclusion that the eternal triumph of law and order is also unnatural, since it destroys the natural movement of matter. Schiller finds his ideal in a virtually stateless people's self-government, in which there will be no gap between ordinary people immersed in matter and statesmen detached from this matter. This is a society consisting of people who have taken responsibility for their actions and their fate, experiencing a natural need to bring good to their loved ones. Only in a society in which the state has actually died out, according to Schiller, is the existence of a beautiful soul possible.